Background

In some cases, an existing text, blog, forum post can help to support your idea.

Without the proper techniques of using quotes, your article is very likely to be tagged as plagiarism, piracy or content duplication.

But how do you properly refer to or quote external (existing) sources?

Guidelines & Best practices

do not copy entire articles or any other content as a whole
you can refer or quote to parts of 3rd party source, when it's functional and supporting your article
quoted text is not main content, the quoted text must be secondary

When using quotes or references to another article or text please use following best-practices:

embrace the block of text with double quotes
put the quoted text in italic
do not edit the text
if you need to remove text use a marker like /../ (to indicate snippets or irrelevant text cut away)

Assume good faith
- Unless there are clear indications for the opposite, people are working together on the TN Wiki and forums, to build and grow it for a better community
- When people duplicate content, it's not necessarily bad will.
Explain & educate
- People don't always know the "rule of game", how it works.
- There is always a first time on the Wiki.
Warn, then act.
- In case of a doubt, get in touch with the TechNet Wiki Council (tnwiki at microsoft dot com)

Terms of Use > Section 5 (Customer accounts, customer conduct, identity services, and feedback.) >F. Submissions and feedback.
- "/../ Microsoft is under no obligation to post or use any Submission, and Microsoft may remove any Submission at any time.
- By providing a Submission you warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to your Submission and that your Submission is not subject to any rights of a third party (including any personality or publicity rights of any person). /../"
Rules of conduct explicitly say:
- "Cite the source of anything you post or upload, if it isn't your own original content. Be honest about your sources."
Intellectual Property >Terms of Use governs that you should not:
- Upload, or otherwise make available, files that contain images, photographs, software or other material protected by intellectual property laws, including, by way of example, and not as limitation, copyright or trademark laws (or by rights of privacy or publicity) unless you own or control the rights thereto or have received all necessary consent to do the same.
- Use any material or information, including images or photographs, which are made available through the Services in any manner that infringes any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other proprietary right of any party.