This was presented during the chapel seminar for undergraduate students at Babcock University Ilishan-Remo, Nigeria

1. INFORMATION SOURCING AND
PLAGIARISM
Why do we need information?
• To make decision
• To complete assignments
• To be better informed
• To better our lives
• To arouse our thinking

2. What is Plagiarism?
Is when you present other people’s works or
idea as if they were yours without giving the
credit to the original owner.
It is not a crime to use someone else's work
or ideas but you must indicate their sources.
There are different ways of doing this and
that is what is called citation, referencing or
bibliography.

3. Why you should not plagiarise.
• It is a lazy approach to work
• It is unethical, it is against humanity
because peoples’ works and ideas are their
personal property. It means you are
stealing them.
• It discredits your institution and your
integrity
• It is illegal, it against the law.(Copyright Act
Chapter 68 Law of the federation of Nigeria 1990
& Copyright (Amendment) Decree No 42 of
1999)

4. Types of plagiarism
• Verbatim copying – word for word
• Patch writing – copying few
sentences from different sources.
• Collusion – using another students
work with their permission.
• Purloining – taking the work of
another student without permission.

5. Cont’
• Ghost writing – the work is written by
some one else and presented as the
student’s own
• Recycling – presenting your work to be
assessed more than once
• Make – up referencing – false details
about the author.
University of Pretoria Library, South Africa
www.library.up.ac.za

6. How to avoid plagiarism
1. Read before time
2. Try to understand what other peoples are
putting forward
3. Acknowledge the sources of your information
4. Use quotation marks to show that the
ideas/words are not yours.
5. Use appropriate referencing/citation style
6. Keep a jotter to jot down essential information
about the authors while reading.

7. Different referencing styles
• Chicago style
• American Psychological Association(APA)
• Harvard style
• Council of Biology Editors (CBE)
• Vancouver style
• University of Ibadan style
Please find out which one is used by your
department.

8. Bibliography
Copyright Act available on
www.nigeria.law.org/CopyrightAct.html
KidsHealth (2012) what is plagiarism? Available on
http://kidshealth.org/kid/feeling/school/plagiarism.ht
ml
Plagiarism dot ORG available on www.plagiarism.org
University of Pretoria. Your guide to anti-plagiarism
Available on www.library.up.ac.za
Van Bramer, S.E (1995) What is plagiarism? Available
on http://science.widener.edu/svb/essay/plagiar.html

9. Thank you for listening