Understanding plagiarism
What counts as 'other people's ideas'?
- words quoted directly from another source
- all ideas paraphrased from another source
- distinctive words borrowed from another source
- ideas or materials taken from the web
- words, ideas or pictures from TV programs, letters, songs, computer programs and/or advertisements
- ideas used from an interview
The following examples of using other sources are considered plagiarism:
- submitting another student's assignment as your own, including:
- paying someone to write your assignment for you
- using parts of a past student's assignment in your assignment without acknowledgment
- buying a paper and submitting it as your own work
- using the structure, argument and research sources from another student's answer
- cutting phrases, sentences or paragraphs from the web and pasting these into your paper without due acknowledgment
- taking ideas, words or sentences from brochures, databases, journals or unpublished papers
- pasting material found on the web or in print into your work and only acknowledging part of the material you copied
- using quotation marks but acknowledging less than all the words you quote
- copying a paragraph exactly and include a citation only at the end of the paragraph (you are plagiarising because your reader does not know exactly where the borrowed material begins)
- copying a paragraph and making small changes, e.g. changing some verbs, replacing an adjective with a synonym and providing acknowledgment in a bibliography (UK Centre for Legal Education 2003)
- cutting and pasting a paragraph by using sentences from the original but omitting one or two and/or putting one or two in different order without quotation marks but with in-text and bibliographical acknowledgment (UK Centre for Legal Education 2003)
In other words, anything you want to use that someone else says, writes, emails, draws or implies, needs to be acknowledged.
When acknowledging other writers' ideas, keep direct quotations to a minimum, avoid overly long quotes and use paraphrasing to demonstrate your understanding.
Acknowledging sources also allows you to take credit for your opinions and thoughts and helps develop your ability to summarise and synthesise information because your lecturers are interested in your interpretation of sources and what you understand. See the Avoiding Plagiarism section (page 9) for advice, information and practise on acknowledging sources.