Wikipedia:Copying text from other sources

This is an explanatory essay about the Wikipedia:Copyright violations policy and the Wikipedia:Plagiarism guideline. This page provides additional information about concepts in the page(s) it supplements. This page is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines as it has not been thoroughly vetted by the community.

Shortcuts WP:Copy-paste WP:COPYPASTE WP:C-P WP:CTRLCCTRLV

This page in a nutshell: With the exceptions of short quotations from copyright text, and text copied from a free source without a copyright, text from other sources may not be copied into Wikipedia. Doing so is a copyright violation and constitutes plagiarism.

For more information on closely paraphrasing text, see Wikipedia:Close paraphrasing.

In most cases, you may not copy text from other sources into Wikipedia. Doing so is a copyright violation. Always write the articles in your own words and cite the sources of the article. Copyright violations are often speedily deleted. Facts cannot be copyrighted. Titles of people or publications cannot be copyrighted. Text and illustrations prepared by the U.S. government are not copyrighted; they are in the public domain and can be used without permission, but to avoid plagiarism a citation is required indicating their source. Material from US states and local governments is copyrighted, as is material from foreign governments. Copyrights expire after many years and then the text becomes free.