Plagiarism is the presentation of someone else’s ideas or words as your own. Whether deliberate or accidental plagiarism is a serious and punishable offense in research projects. Students found guilty of plagiarism get an F grade in research project or may be disqualified from a degree candidacy.
Deliberate or accidental plagiarism occurs when a writer draws words, phrases or passages from someone else’s work and presenting them verbatim as his/her own work without providing complete documentation or source citation.
Deliberate plagiarism may include:
- Copying or downloading someone else’s work (a phrase, a sentence or a longer passage) and passing it off as your own without proper source citation.
- Handing in as your own work, a paper you have bought, had a friend write, or copied from another student.
- Summarizing, or paraphrasing someone else’s idea without acknowledgement in a source citation.
Accidental plagiarism may include:
- Forgetting to place quotation marks around another writer’s words.
- Omitting a source citation for someone else’s ideas without acknowledgement in a source citation.
To avoid plagiarism the researcher should always acknowledge other people’s ideas that are not common knowledge.
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