The following sections under plagiarism will walk you through the necessary steps to take to avoid the charge of plagiarism.
A little background on the science and scientific communication. Over the past four hundred years, science has moved along on the foundations of the written evidence of scientific knowledge housed in the Journal Literature, thus proving that science communications between new discoveries and inventions lie in the literature and that it is cumulative. That is that as new paradigms disprove theories that were held for centuries can be replaced by newer paradigms through the process of peer review - the hallmark of science. And the tracing of all prior research is through the process of CITATIONS.
Solla PDJde. Little Science, Big Science. New York; 1963.
