What is Plagiarism? Citation is the key to avoid Plagiarism

Posted by : Khurram Shahzad on 27 Nov, 2011

Plagiarism, is the very bad impression and in fact the criminal act of stealing the ideas, work done by someone else and claiming it is it yours. Different penalties may be imposed depending on the situation or circumstances.

What is plagiarism? The facts and definition of Plagiarism

To be very precise, when anybody claims to be the owner of the work, previously done by someone, or uses some portion of the work or grabs the concept without giving credit is regarded as plagiarism. Many scenarios and circumstances do address plagiarism differently. This is possible that only the small portion of idea or concept is being used. This is also possible that you have perceived the same idea or you conducted the same experiment that someone already has done before. Again, your work is original work but there is also deficiency on this end as the researcher/author was not able to explore the domain and resulted in the same conclusion that was also declared before.

Types or Examples of Plagiarism

Someone may be convicted of plagiarism if some or more of the listed points come true.

Copied text from all the encyclopedias of the published research papers or journals and using the work or idea without giving any credit is plagiarism.
People have a wrong concept that only copying the text from the research papers or material from the research societies will be regarded as plagiarism. In fact, the reality is copying from any published magazine, newspaper, magazine or even the text from any website is plagiarism. Either you have to provide the reference to the source, or depending on the work, you need to have explicit permission to use the work or text.
Copying video, audio or photograph without the reference, acknowledgement and permission is plagiarism.
Using other student`s work or even the work of your parents without citation or any reference will be regarded as plagiarism.
Using your previous work, and publishing the same contents without any reference is also plagiarism.
Must use quotations for the text cited in the article, otherwise this will be regarded as plagiarism. Hence, even you have used the reference but have not quoted the text, will convict you for plagiarism.
Citing any source or referencing any material that you have not used in the current work is also plagiarism.
Using the text or idea off the internet i.e. book or published printed material is plagiarism.

Above mentioned lines precisely highlights the points, conformance to any or all of the points will be regarded as plagiarism. Work done with the proper survey against any domain or subject is the key to prevent plagiarism. This helps you not to do the same work already done before by someone and opens new paths to explore in particular domain. Using the previous work base as your manuscript by giving reference not only avoids plagiarism but also increase knowledge.

How to avoid Plagiarism? The key practices that make your work original

If anybody uses the work done by someone before, re-phrased the work, summarized the work, or rearranges the order of the sentence, then always give credit by citing the original work.

Always prefer not to use the work with only minor cosmetic changes.

Write down the notes of the cited work. If you are working on the lengthy project then this may result to skip some of the reference. Make this a habit always to write in notes. This may be the reference list written in the end or an essay or any presentation.