ACADEMIC ENGLISH: Recognizing intellectual property

Even when you are in the early stages of note taking, it is important to keep in mind that, in the United States, written texts are considered to be an author’s property. (This “property” isn’t a physical object, so it is often referred to as intellectual property.) The author (or publisher) owns the language as well as any original ideas contained in the writing, whether the source is published in print or electronic form. When you use another author’s property in your own writing, you are required to follow certain conventions or risk committing the ethical and legal offense known as plagiarism.