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Plagiarism


(Click for a hint)
People and organisations can legally own information; it is a commodity. Universities, in particular, create and store knowledge through their teaching and research. In your university studies, you will be expected to work with the intellectual property of others and will be required to apply the appropriate citation rules to all of your writing tasks.

This workshop:

Key words: plagiarism, copyright, self-generated knowledge, common knowledge, intellectual property

About plagiarism

It is critical that you have a full understanding of how evidence is used appropriately (and legally) in academic writing. Take some time to read and listen to the podcasts about copyright and intellectual property at UNE:
eSKILLS UNE: Legal issues

Examples of plagiarism

The most common forms of plagiarism are:
  1. copying word-for-word from a source and NOT citing the source
  2. copying someone else's ideas and changing them into your own words and NOT citing the source
  3. patchworking (taking bits and pieces) from other sources so that it looks like your work and NOT citing the sources
  4. copying and pasting information from the Internet and NOT citing the source
  5. copying and submitting part of or the whole of another student's work (i.e. cheating!)
  6. submitting work that has been written by another person as your own (i.e cheating!)

To reference or not to reference

When you write a research essay, you use information from three kinds of sources.

Click on each link for a description.

  1. Self-generated knowledge (no reference required)
  2. Common knowledge (no reference required)
  3. The intellectual property of others (reference required)

Exercise 1: Kinds of knowledge

Try classifying these examples. Click and drag the sentences to the correct (coloured) box.

Different sources of evidence

Now that you understand the idea that you have to reference the evidence that you use in your writing, you need to have a good idea of the resource materials that are appropriate for academic writing. Take the eSKILLS quiz (see quiz at the end of the information on this link) and see how you have understood the key
points:

eSKILLS UNE: What background information do you need?

Don't do this!

  1. Leave your assignment until the last minute so that you have no time to check your resources and edit your work for plagiarism
  2. Be disorganised with your resources. Have a safe system for organising your information sources so that you make no mistakes
  3. Take shortcuts with information—your lecturers mostly know all the tricks!

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