Studying at University means taking a lot of courses throughout your degree, and consequently, you have to submit a number of essays and other projects. When writing said essays, you will need to consult published works (books, magazines, web pages etc). This is the time when plagiarism can occur.

Plagiarism can be broadly defined as the act of taking someone else’s written work and presenting it as your own. It can take two forms: deliberate plagiarism and accidental plagiarism.

The former occurs when you copy and paste (verbatim) from a published source in your own essay and you do not provide a reference. This is, to the eyes of universities, a grave academic offense and they may take action against you. The best way to avoid this from occurring is to paraphrase the piece of work you intend to use and provide an appropriate reference at the end of the related sentences.

The latter appears when you take the relevant text from the literature, paraphrase it and place it in your essay while failing to provide a reference. In general, Universities will be lenient with students at the beginning of their courses in regards to accidental plagiarism, but they will expect a quick phase out of the practice. Protracted ‘accidental’ plagiarism will ultimately lead to disciplinary action.

In order to avoid either form of plagiarism you need to always reference your citations, and even better, paraphrase the desirable paragraphs and then reference them. Paraphrasing is the act of providing the information read in the same order but in your own words. Do not try to present a ‘copy and paste’ text as your own because, if the coursework is submitted electronically, in all likelihood it will be checked for plagiarism by specialised software. In addition, even when submitted in printed form, the people marking your essays will be able to tell the difference between your writing style and that of the plagiarised author, and call you on it.

What happens if you are caught plagiarising?
There is no clear answer to this. It all depends at your university, department and professors. At the beginning of your first year, you may get a reprimand and possibly a zero on the first occurrence. Try to have a talk with the academic marking your paper, and ask for help in learning to effectively paraphrasing and correctly referencing. They will be able to guide you to the appropriate people and sources. But repeated offences may lead to harsher penalties.

Dimitrios Antonios Koutnoglou 14/09/09