Written Communication Toolkit

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is knowingly presenting the work or property of another person as if it were one's own. In some cultures, summarising or quoting the words or ideas of respected scholars is acceptable, or even desirable. In Australian universities, however, all such source material must be fully documented in all forms of academic writing.

Griffith University treats instances of plagiarism in students' written work very seriously and imposes harsh penalties.

Examples of plagiarism include:

• word for word copying of sentences or paragraphs from one or more sources which are the work or data of other persons (including books, articles, theses, unpublished works, working papers, seminar and conference papers, internal reports, lecture notes or tapes) without clearly identifying their origin by appropriate referencing;
• closely paraphrasing sentences or paragraphs from one or more sources without appropriate acknowledgement in the form of a reference to the original work or works;
• using another person's ideas, work or research data without appropriate acknowledgement;
• submitting work which has been produced by someone else on the student's behalf as if it were the work of the student;
• copying computer files in whole or in part without indicating their origin; and
• submitting work which has been wholly or partially derived from another student's work by a process of mechanical transformation. For example, changing variable names in computer programs.

Griffith University's Policy on Academic Misconduct: Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 23 October, 2006:
http://www62.griffith.edu.au/policylibrary.nsf/azcategory/352f26aa1a1011e64a256bbb0062fd5f?opendocument

Discourage plagiarism

• Avoid having students simply find answers. Encourage students to do their own thinking, not paraphrase the thinking of someone else. What are their thoughts and ideas on a given topic?
• Ask questions which require students to make an inquiry or investigate.
• Have students compile and turn in working bibliographies well in advance of the assignment dates. This will require students to begin research at an early date, avoiding the temptation for last minute information downloads.
• Have students maintain a research log. This will note the databases and indexes searched, search dates, keywords and subjects used, and a summary of search results.

Preventing and detecting plagiarism, Staley Library, Millikin University: Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 23 October, 2006
http://faculty.millikin.edu/~mgeorge/plagiarism/

Detecting plagiarism - some clues:

• Essay is off-topic, with oddly placed 'on-topic' paragraphs;
• References are from books not available in your University. Check your library catalogue;
• References are all five or ten years old, showing it may have been lifted from the Internet;
• The assignment is beyond, or does not reflect the normal level of the student's written work;
• Use search engines. Insert a four to eight word distinctive phrase in full text search engines such as Google, AltaVista, HotBot or Northern Light;
• Look for vocabulary not commonly used in this particular class; and
• Unusual formatting, or a change in fonts within the assignment.

Adapted from Preventing and detecting plagiarism, Staley Library, Millikin University: Retrieved from the World Wide Web on 23 October, 2006
http://faculty.millikin.edu/~mgeorge/plagiarism/

and Dead Giveaways, Plagiarized.com: Retrived from the World Wide Web on 23 October, 2006:
http://www.plagiarized.com/deadgive.html

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