What is plagiarism?
In the definition above, notice the word “deliberately.” The COD Library has adopted this definition of plagiarism because it makes the distinction between a student’s conscious decision to be academically dishonest and between a student’s novice writing mistakes.
Under this definition, “submitting someone else’s text as one’s own or attempting to blur the line between one’s own ideas or words and those borrowed from another source” is a form of cheating or academic dishonesty.
“Carelessly or inadequately citing ideas and word borrowed from another source,” on the other hand, is part of the process of learning how to write as a college student.