The reason you must cite your sources is that using other writer's words without crediting them is academic dishonesty (called plagiarism). Plagiarism is the same as stealing. In the West, universities sometimes expel students who have plagiarised their essays. The SIS policy is milder. You will simply be given "zero" for the essay.
When you don't use direct quotes, you have to change the writer's words into your own words. It is very simple for English teachers to tell when a student has used a professional author's words. The standard of English is so clearly different. If a teacher is in any doubt, he/she can use websites such as turnitin.com to put suspicious sentences through a check of a huge database of published work.
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