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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40577
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40577
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

# How to plagiarize:

1. **Deliberately steal someone's work.** This is always ethically wrong and usually illegal too. Students who do this get expelled or otherwise punished. Authors who do this get legal repercussions and shunned. All deserved. This is not even close to what you are doing.

2. **Accidentally steal someone's work.** Sometimes when you get an idea and you don't know where you came up with it, it turns out someone else's work was in your brain and it filtered in. This is what you're worried you might be doing and, yes, looking up the phrases is a really good idea. But if you find similar (or even exact) short phrases only in places you're not already familiar with, it's a good sign that you're not stealing by accident. (If you are familiar with the other works you probably didn't steal but accident either, context matters.)

3. **Screw up during your learning process.** Students sometimes don't understand how to quote or cite things properly. They aren't claiming they wrote XYZ but they write their paper or work in a way that's misleading the reader. As long as nothing gets officially published, this is the sort of thing a good teacher will catch and correct. 

You are right to be cautious and to research. All of us should do that. But none of your examples are plagiarism. Or even borderline. So keep checking, but consider that you've done your due diligence and go write!

Original score: 4