Plagiarism

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is defined as "the use of others' ideas and presenting them as your own. It is intellectual theft and is considered a serious academic offence"  (Wong 2011). The most popular type of plagiarism among university students is the direct “copy and paste” practice. Copying a sentence from a source like a book, journal article, newspaper, magazine, or any other source of information qualifies to be called plagiarism. Normally, it is not the ideas that are plagiarised because same ideas can occur to different people all the time. What is considered plagiarised is the manifestation of the ideas in audio-visual, print, Internet, cinematic, theatrical, or choreographic (Neville, 2010).

Plagiarism can be of various types. Plagiarism may be intentional or unintentional, as detailed in the article by Mohan et al., (2014).

Intentional plagiarism

“Buying or borrowing or cut-copy-paste” or using some others work partly or completely without giving adequate credit to the original author results in intentional plagiarism (Sapatnekar, 2004; Gerding, 2012; Satyanarayana, 2007).

Unintentional plagiarism

Using some others work with wrong paraphrasing or improper citation refers to unintentional plagiarism (Jones, 2001; Das and Panjabi, 2011; Sapatnekar, 2004; Gerding, 2012; Satyanarayana, 2007).

According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) various types of plagiarism can be distinguished based on factors like: Extent (minor or major plagiarism), originality of copied material, type of material plagiarized, sources referenced or not, authors intention (Mohan et al., 2014).

Forms of plagiarism

1. Plagiarism of ideas: When the author “uses the ideas or thoughts of some others and presents as his own” (Das and Panjabi, 2011) without giving adequate credit to the original authors results in plagiarism of ideas. For example, using the ideas from the previously published articles by postgraduate students while doing their dissertation work.
2. Plagiarism of text/direct plagiarism/word-for-word plagiarism: According to Roig this kind of plagiarism is defined as “copying a portion of text from another source without giving credit to its author and without enclosing the borrowed text in quotation marks.” (Jones, 2001; Das and Panjabi, 2011, Satyanarayana, 2007). For example, most of the young authors do not know how to write and give a credit to the original work from where they have chosen. They just cut and paste from the original source and create an article without giving sufficient credit to the authors who has done the original work.
3. Mosaic plagiarism (patchwork plagiarism): When the author fails to write in his own words and “uses the same words or phrases or paragraphs of the original source” without giving adequate credit results in mosaic plagiarism (Das and Panjabi, 2011; Sapatnekar, 2004). For example, when the authors borrow words/sentences from the original source and do patchwork to his article results in patchwork or mosaic plagiarism.
4. Self-plagiarism: “Stealing or borrowing some amount of work” from his or her previously published articles refers to self-plagiarism (Jones, 2001; Das and Panjabi, 2011; Sapatnekar, 2004; Gerding, 2012). For example, using one's own work partly and publishes the article in different journals results in self-plagiarism.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding plagiarism is quite critical in postgraduate studies. For this reason, the referenced articles (and additional articles in the folder) below highlight a few ways through which students can write plagiarism-free academic documents/papers and research articles. The following steps (Berkin and Anderson 2011) would help you avoid plagiarism as you progress in writing original and authentic project or thesis work or research papers:
1. Acknowledging ideas, quotes, analyses and opinions from other people’s works.
2. Citing/referencing all information borrowed from sources used to complete the assignment/study.

References

Berkin, C., & Anderson, B. S. The History Handbook (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning. 2011.

Das N, Panjabi M. Plagiarism: Why is it such a big issue for medical writers? Perspect Clin Res. 2011;2:67–71.

Gerding AB. Ethical dilemmas in publishing. A rising tide of plagiarism? J Prosthodont. 2012;21:431–2.

Jones LR. Academic Integrity and Academic Dishonesty: A Handbook about Cheating and Plagiarism. Revised and Expanded edition of Florida institute of technology. 2001.

Mohan Kumar P, Swapna Priya N. Musalaiah SVVS, Nagasree M. Knowing and Avoiding Plagiarism During Scientific Writing. Ann Med Health Sci Res. 2014 Sep;4(Suppl 3):S193-8. doi: 10.4103/2141-9248.141957.

Neville, C. The Complete Guide To Referencing And Avoiding Plagiarism (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Education. 2010.

Sapatnekar SM. Plagiarism. J Assoc Physicians India. 2004;52:527–30.

Satyanarayana K. Plagiarism: A scourge afflicting the Indian science. Indian J Med Res. 2010;131:373–6.

Wong, K. K. (2011). Avoiding Plagiarism: Write Better Papers in APA, Chicago, and Harvard Citation Styles. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse. 2011.

Disclaimer:

The definitions and content above are a caption from the article by Mohan et al., 2014. Download the published article and read more from the plagiarism references folder ).