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Plagiarism occurs when sources are not properly quoted and documented.  When writing essays, personal statements and research papers, you must give credit to your sources, whether you quote them directly, summarize them or paraphrase them.

According to the Mount Saint Mary's University Catalog, plagiarism falls into the category of Academic Dishonesty.  It is a serious offense that will not be treated lightly.   Consequences include any of the following: failing the assignment, a lowered and/or failing grade in the course, suspension, academic probation or expulsion.

Mount Saint Mary's University professors use Turnitin, a program that scans students' work for excessive similarities to other published material from their database of print and online works.  They can also tell if the writing style sounds like your voice or the voice of PhD writing for a scholarly journal.

Some free, online sites that check for inadvertant plagiarism and/or style and organizational flaws:

Paperrater

Plagtracker

PlagiarismChecker

These should not replace the human review process (such as asking a friend, colleague, professor, etc. to read your paper), but they can be useful for understanding the value of proper summaraziation and paraphrasing.  This will help you to build your writing skills.