Do you ever worry that you might be plagiarising?
Do you reference every source and idea you use? or
Do you just ignore the rules and think you will get away with it?

If so, THINK AGAIN!

The University of Cambridge takes plagiarism very seriously and every year students are not awarded their degree because they have been found to be using sources without acknowledgement.

The University defines plagiarism as: “as submitting as one’s own work, irrespective of intent to deceive, that which derives in part or in its entirety from the work of others without due acknowledgement. It is both poor scholarship and a breach of academic integrity.” Read the full University statement on plagiarism.

ACTS OF PLAGIARISM

• quoting verbatim another person’s work without due acknowledgement
• paraphrasing another person’s work by changing some of the words, or the order of the words, without due acknowledgement
• using ideas taken from someone else without due acknowledgement
• cutting and pasting from the Internet without due acknowledgement
• submitting someone else’s work as your own

You can easily avoid the charge of plagiarism by ensuring you acknowledge the sources and ideas you use in your written work.

REFERENCING

Here at Judge Business School the referencing system we use is the Harvard style. We have a Harvard Referencing Summary Sheet (PDF) which will help you with the format of your references both in your text and for the bibilography. Alternatively you can use a software program like Zotero or Mendeley to do it for you.

There are more detailed example of referencing rules in the Cite Them Right ebook. We have a video tutorial which tells you how to use it. You can also borrow a print version from the Information Centre.

We also have an excellent (and short) post comparing Zotero and Mendeley.

Finally, here is a link to our 2012 Preventing Plagiarism class presentation (Prezi)

If you are at all confused about the rules then please do come and talk to us.

Post by:
Andy Priestner
Information & Library Services Manager

[Cartoon from: http://edforum.adventist.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Plagiarism.gif]