Activity Two - Part 1

How to Avoid Plagiarism at School
 
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is when you take someone else’s work, words or ideas and claim them as your own. An example maybe when you are writing an assignment and you simply copy and paste information from another source without acknowledging where the information has come from.
 
Why do you need to avoid plagiarism?
Plagiarism is a form of intellectual theft and considered unethical and cheating. It does not allow you to develop your own ideas, skills or knowledge (Board of studies, 2006). Plagiarising brings strict discipline procedures and failure of you assignment. In university, plagiarism can result in the termination of your place at university. Thus, it is important to know how to avoid plagiarism to be successful in writing assignments.

How do you avoid plagiarism?
It is important to find reliable information for assignments, but it is just as important to acknowledge the author of the information you have used. Here are 3 ways you can avoid plagiarism:
 
Referencing
Referencing is way to acknowledge the author/source of information and ideas that you use.  A reference (in-text or in a bibliography) must provide enough information for the reader to find the source you used. “You need to provide a reference whenever you quote, paraphrase or summarise someone else's opinions, theories or data” (Zott, 2008). There are two forms of referencing: in-text and bibliography.
In-text referencing is acknowledging the source of a quote or idea within your writing when you use the source. Usually the author and the year are sufficient recognition.
A bibliography is the list of sources in greater detail at the end of your work. The bibliography allows the reader to find your source quickly and easily.
 
Paraphrasing
The Board of Studies (2006) define Paraphrasing as “putting someone else's idea(s) into your own words. A paraphrase covers the points the author has made, while changing the words.”  You need to reference the source in-text as well as in the bibliography. It can sometimes be difficult to know when you have written something in your own words or paraphrased someone else’s words. In this case it is better to reference where the idea came from anyway.
 
Recording bibliographic information while researching.
Recording bibliographic information while you are researching will assist you when you come to write your assignments. It will make in-text referencing and writing your bibliography much easier. There are some programs that can help you with organising your research material as well as keep track of where it has come from. End note is the most popular software used for this, however keeping a list somewhere works just as well.