Avoiding Plagiarism

Giving credit to resources used

If you looked up how to do something that is not common knowledge, you need to cite the source.

Never use near-verbatim copying. You should make your examples sufficiently unique. If necessary, cite the source you adapted it from and/or link the reference to the source if it is a web document.

Using copyright free images

You should not just copy an image from somewhere on the Web and use it on your web pages. If you are going to use someone else’s images, you should use copyright-free or royalty-free images. For both copyright-free and royalty-free images, you should also cite the source of those images. For images in the public domain or those with Creative Commons licenses, proper attribution is a requirement.

Some platforms with copyright-free and/or royalty-free images

Unsplash
Pexels
Pixabay
Flickr’s Creative Commons section
Wikimedia Commons

Proper citation for an image should include at least the following:

The title of the image.
The creator’s name.
The source (i.e. the book or webpage where you found it)
The date you accessed the image.

Creating your own diagrams

One way to avoid worrying about copyright issues is to draw your own diagrams. A good site for making general diagrams is app.diagrams.net - formerly draw.io. This site has a number of templates you can use and has a variety of shapes. Here is a simple diagram I made at that site using the Infographic templates. (You have to add this with the + More Shapes button.)

This is based on the time management matrix created by Stephen Covey from one of his books I read many years ago. But, it is my own rendition, so I can use this as long as I say the idea comes from Stephen Covey.