ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
The Center for Academic Integrity defined it this way in its document The Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity - "Academic integrity is a commitment, even in the face of adversity, to five fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. From these values flow principles of behavior that enable academic communities to translate ideals into action." See more on the Villanova University, Office of the Provost, Web page.
 
ARTICLE
A small, self-contained essay on a topic, usually found in journals, periodicals, or encyclopedias.
 
ATTRIBUTION
Acknowledging in some forthright way the information taken from another source. Whether in print, on the web or through other media tell your reader where you obtained that information. Sometimes called documentation.
 
BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
The unit of information comprised of fields (e.g., title, author, publication date, etc.) which describe and identify a specific item in a bibliographic database. (See also citation.)
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A list of books, articles, electronic sources and other materials on a specific topic, arranged according to a particular system or scheme.
 
CITATION
Information which fully identifies a book or other item (such as a film, videocassette, CD-ROM). A complete citation usually includes author, title, name of journal (for articles), or publisher (for books), and date. Often pages, volumes and other information will be included in a citation. (See also bibliographic record and record.)
 
COMMON KNOWLEDGE

“Information generally known to an educated reader, such as widely known facts and dates, and, more rarely, ideas or language. Facts, ideas, and language that are distinct and unique products of a particular individual's work do not count as common knowledge and must always be cited” (Harvard Guide to Using Sources, “The Exception: Common Knowledge”).

COPYRIGHT

“A form of protection provided by the laws of the United States for ‘original works of authorship’, including literary, dramatic, musical, architectural, cartographic, choreographic, pantomimic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural, and audiovisual creations” (U.S. Copyright Office Definitions).

 
DATABASE
Strictly speaking, any organized collection of computer entries or records, standardized in format and content and searchable electronically.
 
DIRECTORY
List of persons or organizations, usually arranged in alphabetical or classified order, giving addresses and other information.
 
ENCYCLOPEDIA
Reference work made up of individual articles written by experts on the various topics and giving a broad overview and background information.   May also include references to authoritative books and journal articles on a subject.
 
FULL TEXT DATABASE
Bibliographic database which contains many complete texts of  bibliographic items or periodical articles.
 
GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS
Publications issued by a government or international organization.  These include printed material, such as Congressional hearings, and electronic material, such as census information.
 
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

“Intellectual property (IP) refers to creations of the mind, such as inventions; literary and artistic works; designs; and symbols, names and images used in commerce” (World Intellectual Property Organization).

INTERNET
Overall name for  the network of networks, made up of millions of computers from all over the world. Basic Internet tools include World Wide Web and e-mail.
 
JOURNAL
Periodical that contains scholarly articles or research in a given field of study.  (See also periodicals.)
 
PARAPHRASE
To translate a concept or idea into your own words and then cite the source of the idea.
 
PERIODICALS
Publications that are issued at least twice a year, including journals, magazines and newspapers. 
 
PLAGIARISM

“The act of falsely claiming to be the author of material actually authored by another” (Villanova University, General Counsel, “Plagiarism vs. Public Domain”).

QUOTE
Word for word transcription from a source document.  A quotation must always be enclosed in quotation marks ("      ") and attribution of the source is required. 
 
URL
Uniform Resource Locator. The unique address of any Web document. May be keyed in Netscape's OPEN or  LOCATION box to retrieve a document.
 
WORLD WIDE WEB (WWW)
A client-server information system that uses the Internet to access computers containing millions of hypertext documents.