Avoiding plagiarism

What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the use of other peoples work without acknowledgement. This
includes:

Why do we need to acknowledge the sources we use?

Acknowledging the sources you use in your writing gives authority to your work and
enables you to demonstrate the breadth of your research.
It enables you make a clear distinction between citation (reporting other people's
ideas or findings) and your own position towards the ideas or findings you cite. This
distinction is key to the construction of a convincing argument.
It enables your readers to see where the material you use has come from. Your
readers may wish to trace your sources and check whether you have reported them
accurately and fairly.
It would not be fair to the authors to use their work without mention.
Why do students plagiarise?
Poor note-taking skills (sources are not identified in the notes students take)
Lack of knowledge and understanding of academic conventions regarding the use of
in-text citations and lists of references
Feelings of insecurity about their own writing ('The author puts it so much better
than me!')
Fear of failure/fear of taking risks (Remember: Plagiarism may SEEM safer, but it
isnt!)
Poor time management (starting work on the assignment too close to the deadline)
They have heard of cases of plagiarism that went undetected/were handled
leniently.
How to avoid plagiarism
When taking notes:

Make sure your notes include full bibliographical details of each source (including
page number)
Clearly indicate whether you have copied a piece of text (use quotation marks or
put a Q for 'Quotation' in the margin)
In your writing:

Acknowledge ALL of the following:

Other peoples words, ideas, opinions, research findings, models or theories
Statistics, graphs, tables, diagrams and other drawings
But you do not need to acknowledge facts that are common knowledge; for
example: 'Shakespeare wrote Hamlet' or 'Britain is a constitutional monarchy'.
If you reproduce a few words or a sentence verbatim (word by word) from a source,
use quotation marks. If you want to reproduce several sentences verbatim, put the
quotation in a separate, left-indented paragraph, without quotation marks.
Use quotations sparingly.
When summarising or paraphrasing a source, it is not enough to change just a few
words: change the sentence structure, too (try joining short sentences, splitting long
sentences into two, or changing the order of the clauses).
Ensure that the paraphrase is written in the same style as the rest of the
assignment. In other words, the summary or paraphrase should be written in your
own style.
Check your summary or paraphrase against the source text to make sure you have
not accidentally used the same phrases and sentence structures, and that the
information is accurate.
Before submitting your assignment, check that all the sources you cited in the text
are included in the list of references, and that each item in the list of references is
cited in the text.
Dont submit work that you have already submitted for another assignment.
Dont submit someone elses work as if it was your own (for example, borrowing an
essay from another student; taking an essay from the web; paying someone to write
work for you).