Learning and Teaching Unit
At university you are expected to read widely and to use your readings to provide the evidence in your assignments, rather than just to draw on your experience or hearsay. In fact, you are expected to provide evidence to support the points you are making. The evidence that is likely to come from a range of sources must be acknowledged by using an accepted referencing system. If you don't acknowledge your sources appropriately you will be plagiarising. Plagiarism is to take someone’s words or ideas and present them as your own (Marshall & Rowland, 1998). This means that when someone presents ideas or words as if they are their own, they have plagiarised.
Plagiarism is regarded as academic dishonesty and treated very seriously (see the University of South Australia’s 'Policy on Academic Integrity'). This policy recognises that plagiarism can be deliberate or it can be unintentional or inadvertent but it is always considered as a serious misdemeanour. As a graduate, knowing how to avoid plagiarism will be important in your professional life where you will be expected to respect other people's ideas in much the same way as you do in your university studies.
You can be accused of plagiarism if you:
Keeping track of your sources can help you avoid plagiarism. Here are some strategies to do this.
Paraphrase appropriately.
Paraphrasing is putting another person’s ideas into your own words.
When you do this, you must change the words a lot - it must not be
very similar to the original. Even if you use an in-text reference to show where the idea came from, a lecturer may decide that
what you have written is plagiarism because your wording is too close to the original source.
For example:
If the original source was:
'The dissatisfying nature of industrial or clerical work is no longer disputed. Many of to-day’s employees prefer a greater level of involvement in their jobs than was previously assumed. Many desire more self-control and a chance to make a greater contribution to the organisation' (Schuler, Dowling and Smart, 1988, p 17.)
and a student paraphrased this as:
It is no longer disputed that the nature of industrial/clerical work is dissatisfying. Employees prefer more involvement, desire more self control and a chance to make a greater contribution to their organisation (Schuler, Dowling and Smart, 1988, p 17)
it is likely that this would be considered as “too
close” to the original.
One way to avoid this “too close” situation is to paraphrase a whole paragraph rather than sentence by sentence. To do this you read a paragraph, then put it aside and try to write the main idea in your own words without looking at the original. Check that you have kept to the essential meaning of the original source.
Some students are nervous that they will be accused of plagiarism if they do not reference every idea. At university there are some occasions where referencing is not used but this is not considered plagiarism. For example, lecturers often do not reference the ideas that they present in lecturers; some text books do not give in-text references, just a list of references at the end of chapters. Also in some disciplines certain ideas are not referenced because they are regarded as common knowledge. For example if a student writes the equation E = MC 2 they usually do not reference this to Einstein because it is regarded as common knowledge in some disciplines.
There are two strategies that students can use in these situations. In relation to what constitutes ‘common knowledge’ in a particular discipline it is useful to take note of the practices adopted by academic writers in the discipline. When reading academic articles and books take note of the ideas which they reference, and those which they do not reference. In relation to presenting assignments at university it is safest to assume that some level of referencing is expected with student assignments and assessments. The most notable exception to this is exams where referencing is not usually required. However, for oral presentations it is advisable to reference the ideas being presented and indicate when someone else’s exact words are being used and to draw up a reference list.
As you read more widely from the range of sources you will find at university, you will become aware of the ways in which experienced writers use referencing to avoid plagiarism and you will adopt and use these ways in your own writing.
Marshall, L & Rowland, F 1998, A Guide to Learning Independently, 3 rd Edition, Addison Wesley Longman, Melbourne.
Schuler, R, Dowling, P & Smart, J 1988, Personnel/Human Resource Management in Australia, Harper and Row, Sydney.
