What is plagiarism and how to avoid it

∗
A note to University faculty and students

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism refers to the passing off of another person's work as one's own, whether
deliberate or accidental. Accidental plagiarism is usually the result of poor citation or
referencing, or of poor preparation or a misunderstanding of what constitutes
plagiarism. Deliberate plagiarism is a purposeful attempt to claim another person's
work as one's own.

Any unacknowledged use of words, ideas, information, research, or findings not one's
own, taken from any source including a published or unpublished book, the Internet,
a lecture or conversation, a film, television or radio show, even if paraphrased,
constitutes plagiarism.

How to avoid plagiarism?

Academic writing is filled with rules that authors often do not know how to follow. A
working knowledge of these rules, however, is critically important; inadvertent
mistakes can lead to charges of plagiarism or the unacknowledged use of somebody
else’s words or ideas. While other institutes may not insist so heavily on documenting
sources, University does. In University, a charge of plagiarism can have
severe consequences, including expulsion from the University. This note
reflects University’s policy in some sense, and is designed to help University students
develop strategies for knowing how to avoid accidental plagiarism.

Since faculty may not be able to distinguish between deliberate and accidental
plagiarism, the heart of avoiding plagiarism is to make sure you give credit where it is
due. This may be credit for something somebody said, wrote, e-mailed, drew, or
implied.

Besides giving credit where it is due, you should also be careful about ‘how much’ you
are taking from other’s work. A small quantity is allowed under ‘Fair Use’. But what
constitutes this ‘small quantity’ has always been a subject of debate in publishing
circles and elsewhere. As a general rule, publishers allow authors to use up to 50
words (verbatim) at a stretch from another document (with appropriate
referencing). If you want to use beyond this, you will need to take permission from
the copyright holder (whether it is the publisher or the author).


For internal circulation only.
The following points may be kept in mind while taking material from other sources.

1. Set the borrowed words within ‘single quotes’ with appropriate referencing
2. The portion that you are using is not central or significant to your entire work.
3. You are free to quote from you own earlier work, published or unpublished.
But make sure that you give credit to yourself and to the publisher.
4. Even when you are taking material from reports, published or unpublished,
give credit to the authors and the publisher.

General tips for choosing when to give credit

Need to Document No Need to Document

• When you are using or referring
to somebody else’s words or
ideas from a magazine, book,
newspaper, TV programme,
movie, web page, computer
programme, letter,
advertisement, or any other
medium
• When you use information
gained through interviewing
another person
• When you copy the exact words
or a ‘unique phrase’ from
somewhere
• When you reprint any diagrams,
illustrations, charts, and pictures
• When you are writing your own
experiences, your own
observations, your own insights,
your own thoughts, your own
conclusions about a subject
• When you are using ‘common
knowledge’1 — folklore,
common sense observations,
shared information within your
field of study or cultural group
• When you are compiling
generally accepted facts
• When you are writing up your
own experimental results

• When you use ideas that others

have given you in conversations
or over email

General tips for making sure you are safe

1
Deciding if something is ‘common knowledge’

Material is probably common knowledge if . . .

• You find the same information undocumented in at least five other sources
• You think it is information that your readers will already know
• You think a person could easily find the information with general reference sources
 Action during the Appearance on the
writing process finished product

When • Mark everything Proofread and

researching, that is someone check with your
note-taking, and else’s words with a notes (or
interviewing big Q (for quote) or photocopies of
with big quotation sources) to make
marks sure that
• Indicate in your anything taken
notes which ideas from your notes
are taken from is acknowledged
sources (S) and in some
which are your own combination of
insights (MI) the ways listed
below:
• Record all of the
relevant • In-text citation
documentation • Footnotes
information in your • Bibliography
notes • Quotation marks

• Indirect quotations
When • First, write your • Begin your summary
paraphrasing paraphrase and with a statement giving
and summary without credit to the source
summarizing looking at the
original text, so you • Put any unique words
rely only on your or phrases that you
memory. cannot change, or do not
want to change, in
• Next, check your quotation marks
version with the
original for content,
accuracy, and
mistakenly
borrowed phrases
When quoting • Keep the person’s • Mention the person’s
directly name near the quote name either at the
in your notes, and in beginning of the quote,
your paper in the middle, or at the
end
• Select those direct • Put quotation marks
quotes that make around the text that you
the most impact in
 are quoting
your paper – too
many direct quotes • Indicate added phrases
may lessen your in brackets ([ ]) and
credibility and omitted text with
interfere with your ellipses (. . .)
style
When quoting • Keep the person’s • Mention the person’s
indirectly name near the text name either at the
in your notes, and in beginning of the
your paper information, or in the
middle, or at that end
• Rewrite the key
ideas using different • Double check to make
words and sentence sure that your words
structures than the and sentence structures
original text are different than the
original text

Sources used in preparing this note

FIP (Federation of Indian Publishers). 1999. Manual of Copyright Enforcement. New

Delhi: FIP. 22 pp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism (Accessed on 22 April 2006)

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html (Accessed on 22
April 2006)