Don't get burned by plagiarism.
It is important to understand what plagiarism is so you do not end up failing a course,
ruining your career or getting into a legal battle over it.
Essentially plagiarism occurs when you submit work using the ideas of others without giving
appropriate credit to the source.
It does not matter whether you plagiarized intentionally or not.
It also does not matter if the source of plagiarism was a book, journal, website or something
else.
Plagiarism is a serious offense.
In school, the consequence for plagiarism will depend on the policy at the school as
well as the circumstances and extent of the offence.
In all of the policies I have seen you get at minimum a "0" on the work that contains
plagiarism, even if the plagiarism is minimal.
Upon repeated offences the consequences become more severe.
In the real world, plagiarism can ruin your career and discount your credibility as a
professional.
It also reflects negatively on your profession as a whole.
You may also end up with legal charges against you depending on the nature of the offence.
Anderson (2009) provides an example of someone who was suspended from their practice for
plagiarism.
The way in which credit is given will depend on the format of the work.
What is important is that sources are credited for the ideas derived from them.
For the purposes of this video APA will be used to illustrate some examples.
In APA format citations are used to identify the origin of ideas.
If word-for-word information is taken from a source, quotation marks must be used.
In the APA book you can also find more information about the definition of plagiarism and self-plagiarism
on page 15 and 16.
In essays the most common form of plagiarism I see occurs when sentences or parts of sentences
are copy and pasted from an article then cited incorrectly.
The image on this slide is taken from an article.
Even though I wrote the article, if I were to copy a significant portion of it word-for-word
and put it in another essay or article without identifying it as a quotation that would be
plagiarism -- Even if I cite it like it is on the left of this slide.
In this example I simply removed a few words from the original source.
That is self-plagiarism because those words have been previously published (APA, 2010).
It would have been better to use quotation marks in this situation.
Recall that for APA if more than 40 words are quoted you would use block quotations.
When writing, it is preferred that you paraphrase except when it is absolutely necessary to
use quotations.
In general, if you have more than five major words in a row the same as the original source
you either need to put it in as a quotation or work to further paraphrase the main ideas
in the sentence.
The previous example is not the only form of plagiarism.
There are a number of things that constitute plagiarism.
Another one of the less obvious forms of plagiarism is a failure to cite where your ideas originated.
Yes, you can have your own critical thinking in a paper.
However, whenever you get your idea from somewhere it is important to cite it.
If you are having difficulty knowing when to cite your work seek help from a professor
or resource center at your school.
There are also some excellent resources online to help you.
Probably the most obvious form of plagiarism occurs when information is directly copied
from a source and is not cited.
What other forms of plagiarism or cheating do you know of?
Please comment below this video.
Also be aware that other forms of dishonesty have the same penalties as plagiarism.
Cheating is taken seriously.
With advances in technology there is an increased awareness of the possibility of cheating and
it is becoming easier to catch cheating.
Just don't cheat.
It isn't worth it.
Academic institutions will have a policy outlining various forms of cheating.
If an institution allows cheating to take place it discredits their reputation.
Find out what the policy is at your institution and take a look at it so you know exactly
what plagiarism is defined as and the process for dealing with it where you are.
For further guidance regarding plagiarism please refer to these references or other
publications.
There is a lot of information about plagiarism on the Internet.
Links to some good starting points are provided below.
Remember to ask for help if you are unsure.
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If you have any questions or comments please leave them below.
If there is something you need more help with comment and I will reply and/or make a video
to help you out.
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