Science and Technology

What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is using the words and ideas of someone else and presenting them as your own. It may be unintentional, but having a scholarly conversation requires trust and honesty.

For example, you must cite when using:

• Another person’s ideas, words, opinions, images, media
• Any facts, graphs, drawings, … ANY kind of information that is not common knowledge
• Quotations: another person’s spoken or written words
• Paraphrases: minimally changing another persons words or ideas

 Forms of Plagiarism

• Handing in a paper done by someone else
• Copying text from a website and pasting it into your document
• Using facts, statistics, etc. without acknowledging the source
• Handing in the same paper for two different assignments
• Using the results of someone else’s research as if it were your own
• Using images or media you didn't create

How to Avoid plagiarism

• Keep accurate records during the research process [author, title, place of publication, publisher, date, etc.].
• Put quotations marks around any words copied verbatim into your notes.
• Use organizational tools in the databases or Endnote (part of ISI Web of Science) to help keep track of where you find things.
• For more strategies, information and resources visit "Preventing Plagiarism in Schools" A guide by Matt Ashare of Randolph College

Graphic by EasyBib

Sign into your Walsh account to view this video

Did you know that using data you've found to make your own graph and then not citing the source is plagiarism? Unless you did the study or experiment to collect the data you are using, you need to give credit for the source of the data.

Data: Census information, government published data and statistics, surveys and polls, geospatial data (GIS) , economic indicators, bioinformatics, reports.

Images: artwork, illustrations, photographs, charts, tables, graphs, architectural drawings.

Spoken material:  personal conversations, interviews, information obtained in lectures, poster sessions, or scholarly presentations of any kind.

Recorded material: television broadcasts, podcasts, streaming media or public speeches.

Computer programs: credit the source of any code you adapted from an open source site or other external sources using comments. Follow the terms of any license that applies to the code you are using. If no method for giving credit is specified, usually a URL is sufficient.

If you are giving a formal presentation, you need to give credit for the information used on your slides or in your speech.

 Adapted from Academic Integrity at MIT: a Handbook for Students