Plagiarism

Zuberi, Ramadhani, S.
 Plagiarism
 Plagiarism can occur when copying, summarizing,
paraphrasing, or citing common knowledge, facts,
ideas or words without giving credit to the person
from whom you got the information.
 Reasons of Plagiarism
 A lack of knowledge regarding plagiarism
 A lack of knowledge regarding information on the

Internet
Cont.…

 A lack of confidence in one’s ability to write a

paper
 A lack of knowledge regarding citing sources
 Procrastination. This involve post ponding

minor activities such as jotting down

references when reading materials. This can
most likely make one to fail to return to the
original document due to time constraints.
Categories of plagiarism

Intentional and unintentional

 A. Intentional plagiarism
 i. Direct Plagiarism: Involves exact copying of

words by words from a source document without

giving credit to the creator (Clone).
 Medley (copying of a resource using a few words

here and there without providing credit to the

creator is another form of direct plagiarism.
 ii. Self Plagiarism: Occurs when a person uses
his/her own previous work, or mixes parts of
previous works, without acknowledgement.
 Recycling is the main form of self plagiarism,

where a person generously borrows some

words from his/her previous work without
citation.
 iii. Mosaic Plagiarism
This occurs when a person borrows phrases and
clauses from a source and weaves them into
his/her work without using quotation marks. Also
known as patchwork
 Varieties of forms exist in this type: E.g.
 i. Hybrid where a person combines perfectly cited

sources with copied passages without citation

within one document,

 ii. Mashup, a paper that represents a mix of
copied material from several different sources
without proper citation.

 iii. Re-tweet, is the paper that includes proper

citation, but relies too closely on the text’s
original wording and/or structure.

 iv. Aggregator, a person who has put proper

citation but the articles seems to have no
original ideas/new knowledge.
B. Accidental/unintentional Plagiarism

 This occurs when a person neglects to cite their

sources, or misquotes their sources,
unintentionally. Or paraphrases a source by using
similar words, groups of words, and/or sentence
structure without attribution.
Impact of plagiarism

 Plagiarism is an academic offence as it beaches

copyright laws.
 The breach of it can affect anyone at any stage in

life if detected.
 Every academic institution has a

policy/guideline/bylaw that prohibit plagiarism.

 At MU plagiarism is prohibited by the Examination

and Students’ Assessment Criteria BY- LAWS,

2012 in sect 53.2 which stipulates that:
 Every student’s submitted work shall be subjected

to plagiarism checker/computer software. The

tolerable grade is only 30%.
 And any candidate who is found guilt of plagiarism

shall be liable for discontinuation from studies.

Impact of plagiarism cont

 Destruction of student reputation by being

suspended or expelled from studies.
 Destruction of professional reputation. Remember
most professions have codes of ethics that have to
be observed by members. For us information
professionals, it is even more, we need to be in a
fore front in fighting plagiarism as a way of
safeguarding copyrights violation.
 Destruction of academic reputation. Plagiarism
reflect failure to follow academic standards of
writing/publishing.
 To lose the ability to publish most likely means the
end of an academic position and a destruction of
ones reputation in academic arena including reduced
grades
Impact of plagiarism conti
 Legal repercussions. These impact can be serious
because if sued by the author for copyright
violation the impact can be disastrous. Thus as a
writer you need to be ever-vigilant not to err.
 Monetary repercussions. This may happen when

an author sues a plagiarist in which he/she may

demand monetary compensation/restitution.
 Failure to get real education in life. Plagiarism may

reflect too much dependency on peoples ideas and

the students may not be well his/her thinking
capacity to decipher/challenge critical issues
useful for gaining more knowledge in ones field.
Impact of plagiarism contin

 Thus make sure you acknowledge well other

peoples works.
 In case of doubts use plagiarism checker/plagiarism

detection software to check your writing for

plagiarism before publishing it online.
 Note: laziness or dishonesty in citing can lead to a

ruined reputation, including legal action as it is

prohibited by copyright laws that protect
intellectual properties of creators/authors.
How to avoid plagiarism
 Avoiding plagiarism is quite simple. Just be honest

and avoid cheating in all your writings. This can be

done by citing information obtained from other
authors including awareness and adherence to the
following:
How to avoid plagiarism

 1.Understand impact of plagiarism and strive to

avoid it. E.g. You should write a piece of text
strictly in your own words and then cite your
sources perfectly.
 2.Be familiar in the area that you are talking

about. By understanding the subject, you are

more likely to write in your own words, rather
than restate someone else's definition of this
subject.
 3.Restate the subject to yourself a couple of

times. The key is to understand the material and

be able to express its meaning in your own
words. Try to avoid reading from another
author's material too much, as you will be more
inclined to restate that author's exact statement.
How to avoid plagiarism cont

 4.Reference your quotes and sources properly. You

should include a bibliography or works cited in
your paper. If you use a direct quote from another
author's work, then you should quote it and cite it
properly according to APA style approved at our
University.
 5.When in doubt, give credit by indicating a source

within or at the end of words you have

paraphrased.
 Put quotation marks around unique phrases you

think could be interpreted as being copied: E.g. "A

'paradigm shift' happens when one scientific
revolution forces the community to think of the
world in a fundamentally different way."
 How to avoid plagiarism contin

 6. Understand some basics about copyright.

 As a general rule, facts are not copyrighted. Thus

you can use those that support your assignment.

 Although facts are not subject to copyright, the

words used to express them are copyrighted, as

copyright covers authors original
expressions/words.
 You are free to use ideas from other sources, but

you must use your own words to express them.

 If you must copy, do not copy whole pages or

paragraphs! Instead, put most of them into your

own words, and quote the copied part. Then, cite
your source using APA referencing style applicable
at our University.
In text Citations and Referencing in a nutshell APA

 Citations and references are useful in any documents

as they help readers to know where you found your
information.
 It also enables a reader to get more information on
his/her topic for more clarification by going to the
original document.
 According to APA style, in-text referencing is written
in the middle or outside the sentence as follows:
 Inside the sentence: According to Lowe (2012: 10)
plagiarism is the act of stealing someone else’s work
and attempting to "pass it off" as your own. It may
apply to materials both in print and in electronic
format.
 Outside the sentence. Plagiarism is the act of stealing
someone else’s work and attempting to "pass it off" as
your own (Lowe, 2012: 10).
In text Citations and Referencing in a nutshell APA
cont
 If the quotation is long with more than two

sentences it is indented, italized, quotation

marks removed and citation written at the end of
the sentence as follows:
It was stated that copyright is a form of protection
provided by the laws of the United States to the authors
of 'original works of authorship,' including literary,
dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual
works. This protection is available to both published and
unpublished works (Lowe, 2012:10).