Plagiarism is the act of taking another person’s words, ideas, data or images and using them as your own without giving credit to the original source of the information.
Examples of plagiarism
The following are a few examples of plagiarism:
- Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving them credit
- Copying illustrations, graphs or computer code (for code, check permitted use with your lecturers)
- Paraphrasing another's work too closely, with only minor changes, but with the essential meaning, format and/or progression of ideas maintained
- Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks – this is considered plagiarism even if you reference the source because you have presented the working as a paraphrase
- Relying on a specific idea or interpretation which is not one's own, and which has not been properly cited
- Piecing together the work of others from multiple sources, and representing them as original work
- Presenting as independent work done in collaboration with others (i.e. collusion)
- Preparing an original and correctly referenced assignment and submitting part or all of the assignment twice for separate subjects/courses
See Page 11 of the NCI Library Referencing Guide, 5th edition for more examples of where and how plagiarism occurs.
For more information on plagiarism and how to avoid it see our Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism guide.
