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Plagiarism
Plagiarism (PDF, 31kb)Academic writing
Good scholarship requires building on and incorporating the work of others; however, this use must be appropriately acknowledged.
Academic referencing
Referencing identifies the sources of information used in your assignment.
The main purposes of referencing are:
- to justify/support the position you are taking in your assignment
- to show the strength of the claims/ arguments put forward by different writers
- to allow the reader to physically locate and verify the sources used.
What is it? (Academic Honesty Policy)
Plagiarism occurs when a student presents as their own work the thoughts, ideas, findings or work of another person(s), without due acknowledgement of the source.
Plagiarism involves not only written works, but also material such as graphs, images, music, formulae, websites, and computer programs.
It is important that you thoroughly read and understand the Academic Honesty Policy and the explanations of plagiarism, including collision and recycling. See: http://my.acu.edu.au/5015
Some examples of plagiarism from the policy:
- An assignment that is copied almost entirely from another source … [Section 7.3 (a)]
- An assessment task that is constructed of segments drawn from one or a number of sources without attribution of the source, linked by comments produced by the student. [Section 7.3 (b)]
- Failure to acknowledge indebtedness to books, articles, and other sources such as the internet. [Section 7.3 (d)].
Plagiarism can occur if you:
- cut and paste information from sources without accurate acknowledgment of quotations and paraphrases
- lack familiarity with the conventions of referencing
- copy your paper from someone’s disc
- ask someone to write your paper
- collaborate too closely with another student (unless the assignment is a group project)
- use poor notemaking strategies
- use poor paraphrasing skills
- are unable to distinguish between what needs to be acknowledged and what is common knowledge.
You can avoid problems with plagiarism by ensuring you:
- develop a system to keep track of the bibliographic information
- practise good notemaking techniques, making sure you distinguish between direct quotes, paraphrased passages and your own ideas
- become familiar with the referencing format specified by your lecturer or school.
