Introduction

Plagiarism is copying someone else’s work without giving them credit. This could be information from books, songs & journal articles as few examples. This can be classified as theft of intellectual property. This can result in a student:

• Losing marks for an assignment.

• Failing an assignment.

• Disciplinary expulsion from your course

… depending on the extent to which you have copied others’ work.

It is why it's so important that whenever you paraphrase, summarise, or take words, phrases, or sentences from another person's work. It's necessary to indicate the source of the information within your work using an internal citation. It is not enough to just list the source in a bibliography at the end of your paper. Failing to properly quote, cite or acknowledge someone else's words or ideas with an internal citation is plagiarism.

The video below will give you a overview about plagiarism:

Intentional vs. Unintentional Plagiarism

Intentional Plagiarism occurs when the writers or researches are fully aware that they are passing off someones else's words or ideas as their own.

Some examples of Intentional Plagiarism:

• Copying a friend’s work.

• Buying or borrowing assignments.

• Cutting and pasting blocks of text from the internet without quoting or citing.

• Publishing someone else’s work without their permission.

Unintentional Plagiarism occurs when writers and researches use the words, ideas or quotes of others but fails to acknowledge them.

Some examples of Unintentional Plagiarism:

• Careless paraphrasing.

• Forgetting to cite.

• Quoting excessively.

• Failure to use enough of “your own voice”.

Whether it is intentional or unintentional, there are NO excuses for plagiarism!

How can you avoid plagiarism?

• Quote

• Paraphrase

• Summarise

• Cite and reference

Paraphrasing Misconception

• Substituting a few words is still plagiarising!

• You must change the words and the sentence structure.

• Relate the work back to your assignment question and your argument – this will help you to paraphrase correctly.

Summarising

Summarising is a brief overview of lots of information without the small details

To summarise:

• Use your own words.

• State only the most important facts or details.

• Use as few words as possible.

• Ensure you cite and reference your sources.

A summary of Harry Potter could read:

A boy wizard loses his parents and goes to a school where he makes many friends and enemies. After several adventures, he eventually kills the main bad guy and lives happily ever after. (Rowling, 2007).

Citing and Referencing

All sources used in the assignment need to be cited and referenced.

• Citations are in-text.

• References are a full alphabetical list of all sources cited in the assignment.

• You don’t need to reference:

1. When you believe that what you are writing about is widely known and accepted as fact; often referred to as ‘common knowledge’.

2. When you can honestly say that you knew this fact or information before you started your course.