Plagiarism

The word plagiarism has come from the Latin word ‘plagiarius,’ which means to kidnap. 

            Dictionary definition of “plagiarism” (from Merriam-Webster):

●    Plagiarism means stealing someone else’s work and passing it off as your own.

●    In academic writing, you plagiarize when you use someone’s exact words or paraphrase their ideas without crediting the original source.

 Plagiarism explained

●    Students sometimes plagiarize by accident, even if they don’t mean to cheat. To avoid accidental plagiarism, you need to understand how to properly use and cite sources.

●    Plagiarism doesn’t only mean copying and pasting other people’s work. It can also mean paraphrasing ideas or information without citing the source.

●    Using other researcher’s ideas is part of academic writing, but it’s important to do so correctly.

●    Citing your sources shows the reader which parts of the text are your own original ideas and which are the work of others. It also allows your reader to check the source for themselves.

What is plagiarism?

Deliberate plagiarism

·       Rewriting from books or articles

·       Copying & pasting from web pages and online sources to create a patchwork writing

·       Buying, downloading or borrowing a paper

Accidental plagiarism

·                     Not knowing when & how to cite

·                     Not knowing how to paraphrase or summarize

·                      Not knowing what “common knowledge”

·                       Recycling an old paper

Types of plagiarism

CLONE

An act of submitting another’s work, word-for-word, as one’s own.

Ctrl-C

A written piece that contains significant portions of text from a single source without alterations.

Find-Replace

The act of changing key words and phrases but retaining the essential content of the source in a paper.

Remix

An act of paraphrasing from other sources and making the content fit together seamlessly.

Recycle

The act of borrowing generously from one’s own previous work without citation; Recycle is also called self plagiarize.

Hybrid

The act of combining perfectly cited sources with copied passage-without citation-in one paper.

Mash up

A paper that represents a mix of copied material from several different sources without proper citation.

404 Error

A written piece that includes citations to non-existent or inaccurate information about sources.

Aggregator

The “Aggregator” includes citation, but the paper contains almost no original work.

Re-Tweet

The paper includes proper citation, but relies too closely on the text’s original wording and or structure.

Consequences of plagiarism

●    Grade penalty-Plagiarism isn’t only an issue for students—there have been many high-profile plagiarism scandals outside of universities. An accusation of plagiarism can have serious legal or political consequences.

●    For example, Joe Biden dropped out of the 1988 presidential race after he was accused of plagiarizing his speeches from various other politicians. More recently, Melania Trump has been accused of plagiarizing speeches and publications.

●    Failing your course -In the academic world, the consequences of plagiarism depend on how badly you plagiarized and whether it’s believed to be accidental or deliberate.

●    Disciplinary action-You could be given a lower grade, fail your course, or face disciplinary action from the university.

●    In severe or repeated cases, you might be suspended or expelled.

●    So it’s very important to avoid plagiarism!

 Plagiarism checkers

●    Plagiarism checker technology compares your document to a huge database of sources, which includes books, journals, and websites, as well as student papers and theses that have previously been submitted.

●    The technology detects similarities between texts.

●    It can recognize similarities in a sentence or paragraph even if the words aren’t 100% identical—so just swapping a few words or changing the order of phrases isn’t enough to fool it!

●    The plagiarism checker produces a report with a similarity percentage and a list of similarities found.

●    This shows places where citations are missing or where text has not been properly quoted or paraphrased.

●    Not every similarity is really plagiarism, but the report allows your teacher to check each similarity, especially if the percentage is high. If it looks like plagiarism has been committed, they will investigate further.

Using a plagiarism checker yourself

●    Check if you can get a plagiarism report when you submit your assignment. You’ll often be able to do this and then re-submit it once you’ve addressed any problems and added your citations.

●    If your university doesn’t offer this option, there are third-party plagiarism checker services available that you can use yourself before handing in your assignment.

●    Plagiarism checkers are useful for avoiding accidental plagiarism. You can use them to make sure that you’ve properly quoted, paraphrased, and cited.

●    Free online plagiarism checkers aren’t always safe or accurate, so do your research first. Some free plagiarism checkers store your paper in a database or even sell it on.

Reference

v https://www.scribbr.com/category/plagiarism/

v From ilovephd.com

v www.ed.ac.uk-https://youtu.be/EF5eFeJMplA