Plagiarism is intellectual theft (Breach, 2009, 124)!

In the production of any non fictional work; reports, essays or journals etc, a referencing system
must be used in order to distinguish ones work from that of an author used to complete the work.
This referencing system is used to avoid plagiarism, as the consequences of plagiarism especially at university - can be severe.!

The definition of plagiarism is simply the practice of taking anothers work or ideas and passing
them off as ones own, however this has a more intricate level of detail at university level. Although
the misuse of authorship is described by the term plagiarism, ignorance is not an excuse at any
level, including university. An example of plagiarism is A student takes a large block of text from a
book and quotes it in their paper word-for-word. The student puts a footnote into the paper
indicating were the text came from; but the student does not give any indication in the text that they
are quoting directly from the book. - (examples.yourdictionary.com)!

Whether it is in note taking form, or in a final draft of an essay, plagiarism can be avoided using the
following simple methods:!

Different coloured pens/text!

Quotation marks!
Coding system e.g. [quote] = a direct quote!

These methods can even be put into practice to clearly distinguish ones own ideas from that of
somebody elses [quote] - ilrb.cf.ac.uk!

An authors exact words must be distinguished from ones own using the Harvard system. This
includes the following details - [quote] cite the authors name, date of publication and page number
from which the quote was taken - or the source used e.g. website address. A full reference at the
end of a piece of work must also be used.!

The consequences of plagiarism in regular terms would be that one would be liable to be sued by
the author of the work used, however specifically for university work, this could also include
inspection of any other work submitted, and possible failure of course and expulsion from course
and university. In severe cases of plagiarism, a student could even be denied applications for other
courses in other universities because of their history of reported plagiarism.!

Having never experienced academic writing, either my own or somebody elses, I wasn't familiar
with plagiarism in terms of academic writing, nor was I aware of the importance of acknowledging
academic sources, however now I understand that without referencing sources using the Harvard
Referencing System, it is seen as theft of others academic work and passing it of for ones own.