An overview of plagiarism based on University of Cape Town's Science Faculty postgraduate student guide.

1. Plagiarism ADAPTED FROM
SCIENCE FACULTY
STUDENTS GUIDE

2. Plagiarism
Oxford English Dictionary online
"The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and
passing it off as one's own; literary theft."

3. Plagiarism
You commit plagiarism
◦ Intentionally or not intentionally
◦ When using another person’s sentences, ideas or opinions without
acknowledging the owner
◦ If you do not acknowledging your own published work

4. Plagiarism …
University of Cape Town (www.uct.ac.za) Policy:
◦ About UCT  Policies  Plagiarism  Avoiding plagiarism: a guide
for students
Main Points
◦ Current science is build on previous findings
◦ referring to them is ethical
◦ Plagiarising = Cheating = Stealing = Deception = Offence  Penalty

5. Plagiarism …
Obvious Forms
◦ Copying a borrowed or bought paper
◦ Hiring someone to write a paper or thesis for you
◦ Cutting and pasting large portions of text
◦ Word-for-word copying of a sentence, or paragraph without any proper
acknowledgement

6. Plagiarism …
◦ Obvious Forms …
◦ Using direct translation of a paper written in another language or large
sections of it
◦ Citing sources that you didn’t actually use
◦ Using substantive extracts from your own earlier work without
acknowledgement

7. Plagiarism …
◦ Less Obvious Forms
◦ Not giving proper credit to ideas or findings of another person
◦ Any written text: book, article, blog …
◦ Diagram / Illustration / Picture: E.g. Google search images
◦ Table / Data
◦ An idea: spoken in any form

8. Plagiarism …
◦ Less Obvious Forms …
◦ No need to cite
◦ Your new findings: graphs, illustrations, diagrams, descriptions,
arguments …
◦ Your new ideas

9. Plagiarism …
◦ Less Obvious Forms …
◦ Improper paraphrasing
◦ Do not change accepted terms or expressions for a field of research
◦ Summarise in your own writing style using the terms

10. Plagiarism …
◦ Less Obvious Forms …
◦ Failing to give a proper reference or in-text citation
◦ Missing element of reference for a publication type
◦ Citing a work and forgetting to add in reference list
◦ Inconsistent in-text citation and referencing
◦ Order of elements
◦ Punctuation …

11. Plagiarism: how to avoid
1. Make a habit of reading and taking notes with annotation that
differentiate sources
◦ Q = for direct quotation
◦ P = Paraphrased
◦ M = your own information

12. Plagiarism: how to avoid …
2. As you take notes, make a habit of recording source publication’s
◦ Author
◦ Title: book, article, journal, conference proceeding
◦ Year of publication, volume, issue / part
◦ Publisher & place of publication

13. Plagiarism: how to avoid …
3. During writing your document, use in-text citation to acknowledge
Example:
Skin colour and resistance to diseases in onion plant is determined
by quercetin compounds (Lee, Patil & Yoo, 2015: 108).

14. Plagiarism: how to avoid …
4. At the end of your document / each section, provide full information
of the source
Example:
Lanzotti, V. 2006. The analysis of onion and garlic. Journal of
Chromatography A. 1112(1–2): 3-22. DOI:
10.1016/j.chroma.2005.12.016

15. Plagiarism: how to avoid …
5. Use one referencing / citation convention
◦ UCT Author-Date Convention
◦ APA (American Psychological Association) 6th Ed. Convention
◦ African Journal of Marine Science
◦ many more …
6. Be consistent