Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the unacknowledged inclusion in a student's work of material derived from the published or unpublished work of another. This constitutes plagiarism whether it is intentional or unintentional. "Work" includes internet sources as well as printed material.
Are the following acceptable practices?
1 |
Is this acceptable?Cutting and pasting into your essay a paragraph from a website? |
2 |
Is this acceptable?Copying parts of a friend's essay. |
3 |
Is this acceptable?Reproducing basic information from Wikipedia; there's no need to reference this because it's so basic, and in any case the guidelines say that Wikipedia shouldn't be footnoted as a source. |
4 |
Is this acceptable?Basing your essay on one that you found on an internet 'essay bank'. |
5 |
Is this acceptable?Basing your essay on the argument of a book, article or website provided that you put it all in your own words. |
6 |
Is this acceptable?Accidentally reproducing key phrases from someone else's work or from a website because your notes weren't clear about which were your own words and which were paraphrases or quotations. |
7 |
Is this acceptable?Acknowledging a source in the text in general terms (e.g. "Ecology, as Morley argues, offers a radical new perspective...") but without a specific reference or footnote. |
The key point: it counts as plagiarism even if it's inadvertent, a matter of poor academic practice rather than deliberate cheating; it may be punished less severely, but it is still punished, and likely to go on your record. Keep in mind that you will be judged above all on the basis of the work itself and whether it contains someone else's work without proper acknowledgement.
The good news: it's actually quite easy to avoid plagiarism if you don't borrow other students' essays and don't use essay banks, if you don't cut and paste material from webpages and if you're scrupulous about note-taking and referencing. 'Accidental' plagiarism usually results from working sloppily and in too much of a hurry; simply leave yourself more time.