Avoiding Plagiarism

& Referencing Skills

FACULTY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE AND
HUMANITIES
Tunku Abdul Rahman
University College
 What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism means presenting the work or
property of another person as one’s own
without appropriate acknowledgement or
referencing (RMIT University 2008).

The College considers plagiarism as a

form of cheating in assessment.
 Plagiarism
Plagiarism occurs when there is
evidence of the representation by an
individual, whether intentionally or
otherwise, of another person’s work as
their own or use of another person’s
work without acknowledgement.
 What Constitutes
Plagiarism?
1. importing phrases from someone’s
work without using quotation marks
& identifying the source

2. making a copy of all or part of

someone’s work & presenting it as
your own work by failure to disclose
the source
 What Constitutes
Plagiarism?
3. without acknowledging the source,
making extensive use of someone’s work,
either by summarising or paraphrasing
the work merely by changing a few words
or by altering the order in which the
material is presented
4. using someone’s ideas without
acknowledging the source or the
presentation of work which substantially
comprises someone’s ideas & which
represents these as being your ideas
 Plagiarism
➢ Work submitted by you for
assessment is accepted on the
understanding that it is your own
work without falsification of any
kind.
➢ If you had relied on any sources for
information, acknowledgement of
the source must be made with
appropriate reference.
 Plagiarism
➢ Plagiarism can take many forms –
written, graphic and visual forms
and includes the use of electronic
and material used in oral
presentation.
➢ Plagiarism may even occur
unintentionally such as when the
origin of the material used is not
properly cited.
 Penalty for Plagiarism
➢ Plagiarism is a serious academic
offence. Any use of another person’s
work or ideas must be acknowledged.

➢ If you fail to do this, you may be

charged with academic misconduct
and face one or more of the
following penalties:
 Penalty for Plagiarism
a. the work is marked on its academic merit
(taking into account that the work is not
entirely yours) so that the grade awarded
is appropriate to the work submitted
with an additional appropriate punitive
reduction in mark
b. you are required to submit the same
piece of work purged of all plagiarism or
collusion for a grade capped at the
minimum pass grade
 Penalty for Plagiarism
c. the work is marked on its academic merit
(taking into account that the work is not
entirely yours) so that the grade awarded
is appropriate to the work submitted
with an additional appropriate punitive
reduction in mark but capped at the
minimum pass grade
d. you are failed in the examination of any
unit or course or part of a unit or course
or the whole of the examination
concerned
 Penalty for Plagiarism
e. your name is removed from any pass list
f. you are suspended from any College
examination for such period as the
Disciplinary Authority may decide
g. you are failed for the whole of the
examination concerned & you are
required to leave the course(s) & refused
readmission to any course of study in the
College
 Example of Plagiarism
Original Text
Work motivation and performance increase
when employees feel personally accountable
for the outcomes of their efforts (McShane &
Travaglione 2003, p. 199).

McShane, SL & Travaglione, T 2003,

Organizational behaviour in the Pacific Rim,
McGraw Hill, Sydney.
 Example of Plagiarism
Student 1 wrote:
When employees feel responsible for their
work, they tend to be more motivated which
results in higher performances.
Comments:
These are the student’s own words but not his/her
idea or information. He/She must show where the
idea comes from.
Verdict: Plagiarism
 Example of Plagiarism
Student 2 wrote:
When employees feel responsible for their
work, they tend to be more motivated which
results in higher performances (McShane &
Travaglione 2003).
Comments:
The source of the idea or information is cited. The
page number need not be included as the example
is not a direct quote.
Verdict: No Plagiarism
 Example of Plagiarism
Student 3 wrote:
McShane and Travaglione (2003, p. 199) state
that ‘work motivation and performance
increase when employees feel personally
accountable for the outcomes of their efforts’.
Comments:
The source of the idea or information is cited. As this
is a direct quotation, the page number of the source
is included.
Verdict: No Plagiarism
 Avoiding Plagiarism
• DO NOT directly copy phrases and/or passages
(transcribe) without a reference and/or
quotation marks.

• DO NOT paraphrase other writers’ work in your

written work without citing references.

• DO NOT make a direct reference to an author or

authors you have not read, even if you may
have read about them.
 Avoiding Plagiarism
• DO NOT copy another person’s work, in part or in
whole, or allow someone else to copy part of or all of
the work you have completed.

• DO NOT write your work in conjunction with other

students without prior permission (except in group
assignments where wider consultation is expected, you
should only meet with other students initially to
discuss the essay topic and/or analyse the question).

• DO NOT submit written work already submitted for

assessment in any other course.

Source: Centre of Learning and Professional Development,

University of Adelaide. 2005.
 Referencing Skills
Referencing or citing means acknowledging
the source of information and ideas you
have used in your assignment (e.g. essay,
report, project, research paper, etc.).

This is a standard practice at all institutions

of higher learning including Tunku Abdul
Rahman (TAR) College.
 Importance of Referencing
Skills
• to acknowledge debts to other
writers
• to demonstrate the body/scope of
knowledge upon which your
research is based on
 Importance of Referencing
Skills
• to enable all those who read your
work to locate the sources easily
• More importantly, by using
appropriate references, you will
show the breadth and quality of
your assignment and avoid
plagiarism.
 The Harvard Referencing
System
The process of citing references consists of
two inter-related parts:
• Citing - the way a writer refers from the
text to the sources used in the assignment.
• Referencing - the process of creating a
reference list of each source a writer has
used in writing the assignment.
 Citation in the Text
When you cite references in the text of your
assignment include:
• the author or editor’s family name (or
organisation responsible) - do NOT include
given names or initials
• the year of publication
• page(s) of publication (if appropriate and
where available)
 Citation in the Text
In many cases, you just need to use the author’s family
name and date.

For example:
Many factors are known to affect the success of students at the
tertiary education level (Saunders 2005).
OR
Saunders (2003, p. 21) claims that there are many factors that are
known to affect the success of students at the tertiary education
level.
 Citation in the Text
i. If the author’s name occurs naturally in the
sentence, the year is given in parentheses:

In a popular study, Harvey (2005) argued that we have

to teach good practices…

As Harvey (1992, p. 21) said, ‘good practices must be

taught’ and so we…
 The Harvard Referencing
System
ii. If the name does not occur naturally in
the sentence, both name and year are
given in parentheses:
A more recent study (Stevens 2002) has shown the
way theory and practical work interact…

Theory rises out of practice, and once validated,

returns to direct or explain the practice (Stevens
2002).
 The Harvard Referencing
• System
There are cases when you need to include a page number in
the parentheses.
For example:
Ramli (2006, p. 7) showed that 63 percent of workers was found to be
affected by work-related stress.
• You need to include the page number when you:
a) use a direct quote from an original source
b) summarise an idea from a particular page
c) include tables, figures, charts or illustrations from other
sources in your work
• Use ‘p.’ when you are citing the information from a single
page and ‘pp.’ when the information is cited from more than one
page.
 The Harvard Referencing
System
When there are four or more authors for a reference, you
need to include all their names in your first in-text citation
of their work. When the same source is cited again, use ‘et
al.’ (which is Latin for ‘and the others’).

Saunders, Jones, Cooper and Steinmark (2006, p. 7) postulate that 54 percent of

the students do not use proper referencing system… As a result of this,
Saunders et al. (2006) listed a few major problems that students face in doing
project work.

The names of all the authors are listed in the reference list
in the same order they are listed in the original reference.
 The Harvard Referencing
System
Personal communication such as interviews,
telephone calls, video conferencing and internet
chat do not provide recoverable data; therefore,
they are not included in the reference list. Cite
personal communication in the text citation only.
Provide initials as well as the family name (full
name for Asians) of the communicator and
provide the exact date.

Many designers do not understand the needs of the

young people according to Toi (2007, pers. comm. 19
April) because...
 The Harvard Referencing
• If you are quotingSystem
a few words, the usual
practice is as follows:
Example A:
Saunders, Lewis and Thornhill (2003, p. 93) argued that
grounded theory is best defined as ‘theory building’
compared to the assertion of Glaser and Strauss (1967) of
inductive approach to research.
Example B:
Robson (2002, p. 178) defines case study as ‘a strategy for
doing research which involves an empirical investigation of
a particular contemporary phenomenon [current issues]
…using multiple sources of evidence.’
• The quotation forms part of your text and is
indicated by enclosing it using either single
apostrophe ‘ ’ or double apostrophe “ ”.
 The Harvard Referencing
•
System
The … indicates word or words from the original source
have been left out.
• Square brackets [ ] tell your reader you have added your
own words to the quotation.
• If you are quoting a longer quotation, it is a common
practice for the whole quotation to be indented:
“There is no doubt that Internet technology has changed
and is changing the way organizations do business. Using
the Internet, companies have, for instance, (1) created
knowledge bases that employees can tap into anytime,
anywhere; (2) turned customers into collaborated partners
who design, test and launch new products; (3) become
virtually paperless in specific tasks such as purchasing and
filling expense reports; (4) managed logistics in real time;
and (5) changed the nature of numerous work tasks
throughout the organization …” (Robbins & Coulter 2005, p.
197)
 The Reference List
1. The reference list in the Harvard referencing
system:
• is titled ‘References’
• is a single list – books, journal articles and electronic
sources are listed together and not arranged in a separate
list
• includes the full details of your citation in the text
• is NOT a bibliography – you do not need to produce a
bibliography for your assignments unless specifically
asked to do so by your lecturer. A bibliography lists
everything you may have read but did NOT use it in the
course of doing the assignment while a reference list is
limited to the citation in the text references used in your
assignment.
 The Reference List
2. The reference list is arranged alphabetically by
authors’ family names. When an item has no
author (e.g. newspaper report, annual company
report, brochure), it is cited by its title and
sequenced in the reference list by the first
significant word of the title.

3. The Harvard referencing system DOES NOT

require the second and subsequent lines of the
reference to be indented.
 The Reference List
Example of a book
Author’s family name, Initial(s) year, Title of book, Publisher,
Place of publication.
Author’s family Title of the book in italics
Year of publication
name followed by a comma - upper
followed by a
followed by a case used only for the first
comma -
comma, word
no brackets
then initial(s)

Cameron, SK 2002, Business student’s handbook: Learning

skills for study and employment, Prentice Hall, Harlow.

Place of
Publisher
publication
followed
followed by a full
by a comma
stop
 The Reference List
Example of an academic journal
Author’s family name, Initial(s) year, ‘Title of article’, Title of
journal, volume number, issue number, page number.
Author’s family Title of the article in single
Year of publication
name inverted comma - upper
followed by a case for
followed by a
comma - the first word only, a comma
comma,
no brackets after
then initial(s)
the second inverted comma

Bilosvalavo, RL & Lynn, M 2006, ‘Mission statements in

Slovene enterprises: Institutional pressures and contextual
adaptation’, Management Decision, vol. 45, no. 4, pp. 773‐788.

Issue Page number (pp.)

Title of the of
Volume number
journal in the article
number followed
italics followed by
followed by a by a
followed by a a full stop at the
comma comma
comma end
 The Reference List
Example of an electronic publication
Author’s family name, Initial(s) year, Title of document or
website, date viewed, <URL address in full>.
Author’s family Title of the article in
Year of publication
name italics,
followed by a
followed by a followed by a comma -
comma -
comma, upper
no brackets
then initial(s) case used for first word

Potter, JB 2005, The big five personality test, viewed 11 July

2007, <http://www.outofservice.com/bigfive>.

Date the document is

accessed followed by
The internet address (URL) is a
enclosed in < and > with the full comma
address and followed by a full stop
 The Reference List
Other examples:
Books The entry in the reference list
Single author Khoo, KK 1977, The western Malay states, Oxford
University Press, Kuala Lumpur.
Two or three Kim, WC & Mauborgne, R 2005, Blue ocean strategy:
authors How to create uncontested market space and make
the competition irrelevant, Harvard Business
School, Boston.
Four or more Sandler, MP, Patton, JA, Coleman, RE, Gottschalk, A,
authors Wackers, FJ & Hoffere, PB 1995, Diagnostic nuclear
medicine, Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore.
Book with no Networking essential plus, 2000, 3rd edn, Microsoft
author Press, Redmond.
Second Jeremy, H (ed.) 2001, Management today, 2nd edn,
edition Century Learning, London.
or later
edition
of a book
 The Reference List
Other examples:
Journals The entry in the reference list
Single author Ho, S 2007, ‘Knowledge sharing ‐ a fear factor’,
Malaysian Management Review, vol. 42, no. 2, pp.
1‐22.
Two or three Li, G & Clifford, N 2007, ‘When a talking computer
authors agent is half human and half humanoid’, Human
Communication Research, vol. 33, no. 2, pp. 163‐193.
More than four George, B, Sims, P, Mclean, AN & Mayer, D 2007,
authors ‘Discovering your authentic leadership’, Harvard
Business Review, vol. 85, no. 2, pp. 129‐138.
Journal article ‘Anorexia nervosa’ 1969, British Medical Journal, vol.
with no author 10, no. 2, pp. 529‐536.
Journal article Eisend, M & Schucherta, P 2006, ‘Explaining
from an counterfeit purchases: A review and preview’,
electronic Academy of Marketing Service, vol. 2006, no. 2,
journal using
viewed 31 July 2007, <http://www.amsreview.org/
electronic
 The Reference List
Other examples:
Electronic The entry in the reference list
Publications
A World Wide Potter, J 2005, The big five personality test, viewed 11
Web site July 2007, <http:// www.outofservice.com/bigfive>.
Electronic book Holland, M 2004, Guide to citing internet sources,
2nd edn, updated 2 November 2005, viewed 10 July
2007, <http:// www.bournemouth.ac.uk/library/using/
guide_to_citing_
internet_source.html>.
Electronic Crain, J 2000, ‘The effects of a formal induction
thesis program on newly hired teachers’ perceptions on
self‐efficacy’, Department of Teaching and
Leadership, PhD thesis, University of Kansas,
viewed 30 July 2007, UMI Proquest Dissertation
ATT990068, <http://proquest.umi.com.newdc. oum.
edu.my/
pqdweb?index=1&did=728423791&TS=1185859215&c
lientId=56581>.
 The Reference List
Other examples:
Others The entry in the reference list

Newspaper Fernandez, T 2007, ‘I didn’t make any threats:

article with Kayveas’, Sun 31 July, p. 2.
author
Note: ‘The’ in the English language newspaper
titles is omitted.
Newspaper Sun 2007, ‘Master plan boost for northern
article corridor’, 31 July, p. 3.
without
author
Pamphlet or TAR College Prospectus 2007/2008 2007, Tunku
brochure Abdul Rahman College, Kuala Lumpur.
 Avoiding Plagiarism
Learn how to cite &
prepare reference correctly.
Refer to the
College Harvard Referencing System
and
Avoiding Plagiarism
booklets available at all faculties.