What is Plagiarism?
An answer that defines plagiarism and outlines the consequences for students who do plagiarise.
Question
What is plagiarism?
Answer
Plagiarism is defined as the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as your own. It is not only taking someone’s written work that constitutes plagiarism, taking someone’s idea, conversation or song and passing it off as your own is plagiarism. When completing academic work you need to cite the source of the information that you are using. Whenever you quote from a source or even just paraphrase from a source you need to provide a citation. It is not enough just to list the sources in a reference list or bibliography at the end of this essay; if you just did this your work would still be considered to be plagiarised. Therefore, you must always cite the source of your information within the work itself. This is something that universities take very seriously; to commit an act of plagiarism would mean severe consequences for you as a student. You may automatically fail the assignment, be made to retake the entire module or year and in some cases, even struck off the course completely.