What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism occurs when you: • Present someone elses exact words (e.g. direct quotations) or ideas as though they are your own. • Paraphrase without acknowledging the source. • Do not acknowledge the source of facts that do not belong to general knowledge. To avoid plagiarism: Use your own words and give credit to all sources that you have directly quoted or borrowed ideas from. Acknowledging sources correctly is an important academic skill. Some TRU-OL courses and various library resources contain information about how to identify your sources. Penalties for plagiarism include: • Mark of zero on your assignment • Fail (F) grade for the course and the possibility of a more serious consequence Refer to TRU-OL student conduct policies.
Most written work will need to include sections or ideas from other people’s work. This is standard academic practice. However, it is important that where you do this the examiner is ledt in no doubt about which words or ideas are your own and which came from someone else. This is done by clearly referencing other people’s ideas, text, or diagrams in an assignment. Failing to reference correctly, even by accident, will be treated as plagiarism. The University views plagiarism as ‘presenting someone else’s work as your own. Work means any intellectual output, and typically includes text, data, images, sound or performance. (www.leeds.ac.uk/AAandR/cpff.htm). The idea of intention is not included in the definition. This means that if you have used someone else’s work and not properly referenced that person/source, even without deliberately intending to, you will still be likely to be found guilty of plagiarism. Every course or departmental handbook has guidelines for the appropriate way t
Plagiarism occurs when a person takes the ideas of another and presents them in a way that makes others believe that the ideas are the creation of the person presenting them and not the creation of the person who actually created them. It’s important to understand that plagiarism isn’t just about using someone else’s words without giving them credit. It’s about stealing other people’s ideas and presenting them as your own. Even if you put someone else’s ideas into your own words, you’re still plagiarizing if you don’t make it clear that you are, in fact, explaining someone else’s thinking. In college, plagiarism most commonly occurs in essays when students fail to properly cite sources in their writing or when students paraphrase improperly. For more information on how to avoid these types of plagiarism, visit the online resources page.
