Plaguarism and the college paper

Plagiarism in college seems to be a major issue these days, yet if you ask the average college student how they know for sure that their paper doesn't contain plagiarism of any sort, more than half would be wrong( states Turnitin.com).
So I figured Id take the time to provide some key points of what do and don't define plagiarism in a college paper.

YOU'RE GUILTY OF PLAGIARISM IF YOU:

1. You copy and pasted words from a website, but changed the words around, or used synonyms for certain words.
Changing words around proves you have a theasuarus, not any writing skill.
HOW TO CORRECT THIS:
Summarize the ideas that are  relevant and give the author credit.

YOU MIGHT HAVE PLAGIARIZED IF:

2.You paraphrased what you've read from a source, but didn't show where you got that information from. This is an iffy situation because really, it all depends on the context of the situation. The question you should ask yourself is, is this information something that is common knowledge, because if it is, your safe.
But how are you to know if your idea of what is common knowledge matches that of your professor, you cant, so always cite the sources of your information.

YOU HAVE NOT PLAGIARISM IF:

3. You have just used key terms from a source you've researched.
UNLESS:
The key term you're using is specific to the source or author. Which is once again an issue of context.

 The best thing to do to make sure is to do a plagiarism check on your paper before turning it in. There are a number of sites you can perform these checks at, but many only allow a limited number of uploads before you have to pay, but there is a site out there that is completely free,  its called Plagtracker.
I have installed a widget from the site, right on the home page so you can check your papers for plagiarism , anytime you'd like. Just make sure to bookmark the home page so you can easily find that widget when you need it.