What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the act of claiming or implying original authorship of someone else's written or creative work as one's own. It is irrelevant whether the plagiarism occurs in whole or in part. So long as it is claimed into one's own without adequate acknowledgement, it is classified as plagiarism. Cited: Wikipedia
How can students avoid plagiarism?
- To avoid plagiarism, you must give credit whenever you use another person's idea, opinion, or theory;
- any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings-any pieces of information-that are not common knowledge;
- quotations of another person's actual spoken or written words; or
- Paraphrase of another person's spoken or written words.
Ways of avoiding plagiarism
1. Put in quotations everything that comes directly from the text especially when taking notes.
2. You may paraphrase, but be sure you are not just rearranging or replacing a few words.
What is para-phrasing?
- rewording of something spoken or written, usually for the purpose of making its meaning clearer
- an approximate rendering of a quotation, saying, etc. whose exact words cannot be cited or recalled
3. Check your paraphrase against the original text to be sure you have not accidentally used the same phrases or words, and that the information is still accurate.
For more information on plagiarism, click on the following links.
Page Updated: 24 August 2010
