2. Plagiarism
Oxford English Dictionary online
"The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and
passing it off as one's own; literary theft."
3. Plagiarism
You commit plagiarism
◦ Intentionally or not intentionally
◦ When using another person’s sentences, ideas or opinions without
acknowledging the owner
◦ If you do not acknowledging your own published work
4. Plagiarism …
University of Cape Town (www.uct.ac.za) Policy:
◦ About UCT Policies Plagiarism Avoiding plagiarism: a guide
for students
Main Points
◦ Current science is build on previous findings
◦ referring to them is ethical
◦ Plagiarising = Cheating = Stealing = Deception = Offence Penalty
5. Plagiarism …
Obvious Forms
◦ Copying a borrowed or bought paper
◦ Hiring someone to write a paper or thesis for you
◦ Cutting and pasting large portions of text
◦ Word-for-word copying of a sentence, or paragraph without any proper
acknowledgement
6. Plagiarism …
◦ Obvious Forms …
◦ Using direct translation of a paper written in another language or large
sections of it
◦ Citing sources that you didn’t actually use
◦ Using substantive extracts from your own earlier work without
acknowledgement
7. Plagiarism …
◦ Less Obvious Forms
◦ Not giving proper credit to ideas or findings of another person
◦ Any written text: book, article, blog …
◦ Diagram / Illustration / Picture: E.g. Google search images
◦ Table / Data
◦ An idea: spoken in any form
8. Plagiarism …
◦ Less Obvious Forms …
◦ No need to cite
◦ Your new findings: graphs, illustrations, diagrams, descriptions,
arguments …
◦ Your new ideas
9. Plagiarism …
◦ Less Obvious Forms …
◦ Improper paraphrasing
◦ Do not change accepted terms or expressions for a field of research
◦ Summarise in your own writing style using the terms
10. Plagiarism …
◦ Less Obvious Forms …
◦ Failing to give a proper reference or in-text citation
◦ Missing element of reference for a publication type
◦ Citing a work and forgetting to add in reference list
◦ Inconsistent in-text citation and referencing
◦ Order of elements
◦ Punctuation …
11. Plagiarism: how to avoid
1. Make a habit of reading and taking notes with annotation that
differentiate sources
◦ Q = for direct quotation
◦ P = Paraphrased
◦ M = your own information
12. Plagiarism: how to avoid …
2. As you take notes, make a habit of recording source publication’s
◦ Author
◦ Title: book, article, journal, conference proceeding
◦ Year of publication, volume, issue / part
◦ Publisher & place of publication
13. Plagiarism: how to avoid …
3. During writing your document, use in-text citation to acknowledge
Example:
Skin colour and resistance to diseases in onion plant is determined
by quercetin compounds (Lee, Patil & Yoo, 2015: 108).
14. Plagiarism: how to avoid …
4. At the end of your document / each section, provide full information
of the source
Example:
Lanzotti, V. 2006. The analysis of onion and garlic. Journal of
Chromatography A. 1112(1–2): 3-22. DOI:
10.1016/j.chroma.2005.12.016
15. Plagiarism: how to avoid …
5. Use one referencing / citation convention
◦ UCT Author-Date Convention
◦ APA (American Psychological Association) 6th Ed. Convention
◦ African Journal of Marine Science
◦ many more …
6. Be consistent