When you are doing a book report or a Term paper, you are not writing the report base don your memory or things that you have made up. You are writing your report based on books, magazines and encyclopedias. This is what makes a report great, using references. But whenever you quote from a book or take some information from a book you have to reference the book in the report.
This information goes into the Bibliography, which is a list of all of the information that you used to write your report. But when you refer to a book you cannot just write down what they say word for word just because you gave them credit. That is called Plagiarism, you can paraphrase which means basically writing the same idea but in your own words. But you still have to reference the book because it gave you the information to start with.
Choosing a book to reference may be a different story. How do you know if they have the information you need? Well, most people will read the table of contents or the index of a book and see if the information on the book would be useful to them. By not referencing the book you are passing off the idea and the work as your own.
The words may be your own but the information could not be. Teachers and Professors give credit when their students do the right thing and credit the reference book they used. Reference books can be found in the library, many students these days rely on websites but on certain sites the information could be false. Stick with reliable websites written by experts and the same goes for books.
Most libraries have great reference books, the information is accurate and the information you need to reference the book in your report is accessible. Most of the information is found in the front of the book in the first couple of pages. If you need help with the book reference, ask the librarian for help or talk to your English teacher, they will be more than happy to help to you.
Write a report like a professional, always give credit where credit is due. It is a good practice and if you do it once you will automatically do it on all reports.
