Copying this sentence word-for-word would, of course, be plagiarism.

But in the cut-and-paste world of the Internet, what constitutes the theft of ideas and prose?

Dictionary.com defines plagiarism first as "the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work."

Its second definition is "something used and represented in this manner."

A more detailed look at what plagiarism really is can be found on the Web site of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It has resources for both faculty and students at integrity.unc.edu/resources.html.

One of the examples of an unacceptable paraphrase is from Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind.

It uses this original text from "Lizzie Borden: A Case Book of Family and Crime in the 1890s" by Joyce Williams and others:

"The rise of industry, the growth of cities, and the expansion of the population were the three great developments of late nineteenth century American history. As new, larger, steam-powered factories became a feature of the American landscape in the East, they transformed farm hands into industrial laborers, and provided jobs for a rising tide of immigrants. With industry came urbanization the growth of large cities (like Fall River, Massachusetts, where the Bordens lived) which became the centers of production as well as of commerce and trade."

The IU guide considers the following to be plagiarism because it changes only a few words, phrases or sentence order and fails to cite a source:

"The increase of industry, the growth of cities, and the explosion of the population were three large factors of nineteenth century America. As steam-driven companies became more visible in the eastern part of the country, they changed farm hands into factory workers and provided jobs for the large wave of immigrants. With industry came the growth of large cities like Fall River where the Bordens lived which turned into centers of commerce and trade as well as production."

The IU guide gives the following as an example of an acceptable paraphrase because the information is accurate, the writer uses her own words, and the source is identified:

"Fall River, where the Borden family lived, was typical of northeastern industrial cities of the nineteenth century. Steam-powered production had shifted labor from agriculture to manufacturing, and as immigrants arrived in the US, they found work in these new factories. As a result, populations grew, and large urban areas arose. Fall River was one of these manufacturing and commercial centers (Williams 1)."

Alternatively, another acceptable technique would be to quote from the original passage, with attribution:

"Fall River, where the Borden family lived, was typical of northeastern industrial cities of the nineteenth century. As steam-powered production shifted labor from agriculture to manufacturing, the demand for workers 'transformed farm hands into industrial laborers,' and created jobs for immigrants. In turn, growing populations increased the size of urban areas. Fall River was one of these hubs 'which became the centers of production as well as of commerce and trade' (Williams 1)."

The IU guide notes that these rules apply to all sources, including the Internet.

It states: "The World Wide Web has become a more popular source of information for student papers, and many questions have arisen about how to avoid plagiarizing these sources. In most cases, the same rules apply as to a printed source: when a writer must refer to ideas or quote from a WWW site, she must cite that source."