What is plagiarism?

All the information was adapted from the book Teaching Effective Source Use (2017) by J. A. Mott-Smith, Z. Tomaš, and I. Kostka.

Authors: Martin Valušiak, Jozef Kulla

Introductory video

How can you be accused of plagiarism?

At university, you can be accused of plagiarism if you:

copy and paste information
forget to mention the author of the source
follow another writers' thoughts/organization of thoughts
include citations of sources you used only at the end of your paper and not inside your paper
change only the vocabulary of the cited statement and not syntax, when paraphrasing

Scope of plagiarism

Even though many teachers feel the issues of unconventional source use should be viewed as a pedagogical issue, plagiarism is often seen as an ethical concern. This could be applied in Slovakia as well as in other countries all over the world. For example, in Matej Bel University plagiarism is defined in the Ethical Codex of Students (More information on the website.)
Therefore, every violation against source use is investigated by the Ethical Committee.

What does this mean for you:

Ideally, if you misuse sources in your classes, your professors will guide you to make improvements.
You can also use Turn-it-In or another e-tool to check if your paper could be viewed as problematic in the amount of information copied.
If you are accused of plagiarism at your university, you could face the Ethical Committee and may fail a class or get expelled from the university.

Situation at the University

At the University students struggle what information should be cited. You need to consider, whether cited information is common knowledge, or an idea of another author. Your professors may have different recommendations with these being common: Cite when you:

quote two or more words verbatim
introduce facts you have found in a source
paraphrase ideas you have found in the source
introduce common knowledge the reader may not know
borrow the structure/plan of a larger section
collaborate with others in producing the knowledge

A Note about Punitive v.s. Pedagogical Approaches

Because the scope of plagiarism has been narrowed only to ethical point of view, it has created an oppressive atmosphere among students and teachers. Teachers tend to chase students’ wrong citations in order to define it as plagiarism. Especially in Slovakia, the recent affairs of politicians plagiarising their theses have made this issue look serious. On one hand, the teachers’ behaviour is justified, because students like to simplify their assessments. On the other hand, chasing students and punishing them for wrong citations is not a correct way to improve their writing skills. Students should consider asking for more practice opportunities and feedback!

Which of the two samples may be viewed as plagiarism?

Sample 1: In addition to translator's ideological stance, it is need to be mentioned the norms in translation. The initial norm provides the translator whether they use cultural norms of source or target language.

Sample 2: Popovič (1975, p .31), in his Teória umeleckého prekladu defines the translator's ideological stance as "the translator's attitude towards the ideological-aesthetic qualities of the originil, in which they manifest the directives of the social order, as well as their own attitude towards the meaning of their literary activity".

If you guessed that Sample 1 could be viewed as plagiarized, you guessed correctly. It introduces someone's ideas without citing them properly. In Sample 2, you can see the author of the definition, as well as book where the idea was presented with particular page. That is how it should be done (although the title is optional since the reader can find that in the References).

Cited from: Kostka I., Tomaš Z., Mott-Smith J.A.: Teaching effective source use. 2017. University of Michigan Press, USA, 2017. ISBN-13: 978-0-472-03689-9.

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