Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.
-- Zora Neale Hurston

Conducting library research involves more than just collecting sources; it is a process of discovery that bridges time, places, and minds. When you write a paper about a topic, conducting library research allows you to "listen in" on the conversations about that topic: you get to learn what the best minds have said on the topic, and how people's ideas about the topic have developed over time. Because of this, research can lead to inspiration, to new ideas that you can pursue and to your own contributions, through your writing, to the academic community.

As much as it is a process of discovery, conducting library research is also a series of tasks, including locating, collecting, collating, tracking, and evaluating your sources. Each of these steps provides you with an opportunity to maintain academic honesty. If you neglect any one of these steps, or perform them too quickly or sloppily, you run the risk of plagiarizing.

On the other hand, if you understand the processes and principles behind locating, evaluating, and using sources, you can reduce your risk of plagiarizing. In the early stages of the writing process, you'll need to carefully evaluate your sources and take good notes on them; in the middle stages of the writing process, you'll need to use your sources properly as support for your own ideas; and in the final stages of the writing process, you'll need to check (and re-check) your citations for accuracy.

As you can see, library research brings with it a great deal of responsibility. Working with others' ideas requires you to critically engage with what they're saying, evaluate the merit of those ideas and their usefulness to your project, incorporate the most useful ideas in your writing without losing your own voice, and give those authors credit every time you refer to their ideas or words. Writers who accept this responsibility rarely commit plagiarism.