What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism means using another author’s exact words without acknowledging the original author, thus presenting the ideas as if they were your own. Plagiarism is a very important issue in the academic context and is sometimes considered as a serious academic offense with serious repercussions.

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Before engaging in any academic writing activity, it is important to familiarise yourselves with your University’s policy for handling cases of plagiarism. It is important to know that in most universities students may either not get any grades or even the course if they plagiarised. Further disciplinary action is also possible in some other universities which may even result in being expelled from the university if your plagiarism is substantial. Therefore, it is advised to be certain what the policies are before embarking on any academic writing activity.  

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There are many applications that are used by university lecturers to discover the extent of plagiarism in students’ written material. Some of these applications are: iThenticate, Plagiarism Detector, Turnitin, etc.

 

How do you avoid committing plagiarism?

To avoid plagiarism, it is necessary to develop your paraphrasing, summarising and citing skills. You will find further information about each of these skills in the relevant areas of the site. Further information on plagiarism can be found here and the references therein.