How to avoid plagiarism

Plagiarism can sometimes be the result of poor note taking, or paraphrasing without properly citing the reference. You can avoid plagiarism by:

• citing your references
• referencing correctly
• recording direct quotes and paraphrases correctly when note taking.

Quotes

When you use the exact words, ideas or images of another person, you are quoting the author. If you do not use quotation marks around the original author's direct words and cite the reference, you are plagiarising.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing is when you take someone else's concepts and put them into your own words without changing the original meaning. Even though you are not using the same words you still need to state where the concepts came from.

Note taking

Poor note taking can lead to plagiarism. You should always take care to:

• record all reference information correctly
• use quotation marks exactly as in the original
• paraphrase correctly
• clearly distinguish your own ideas from the ideas of other authors and researchers.

All plagiarism is viewed seriously by the University and can incur penalties.