A Beginners Guide to

What is plagiarism and how can you avoid it?

written and
illustrated by

Deb J Hill

WHAT THE HECK IS PLAGIARISM?

Do you know
what it means?
Plagiarism means
stealing someone
elses ideas without
acknowledging them.

We all hate cheats and plagiarism is a special kind of cheating.

Basically it means copying the ideas of others and passing them
off as your own. It might be because you dont know the rules of
writing assignments or because you choose to take short-cuts.

The important thing to remember is that

even if you dont intend to plagiarise, it will
always be perceived as cheating! Thats why
this booklet is meant to help you.

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Weird word!
Where did that
come from?

According to Wikipedia, the word

plagiarism was first used by a poet
who complained that another poet
had kidnapped his verses.
Plagiarism literally means kidnapper.
Ye gods!
Hes stolen my verses!

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Now. you might not want

to steal anyones verses but
its pretty easy to plagiarise
when writing an assignment.

A lot of unintentional
plagiarism occurs because
people just dont realise that, as
they are gathering information
and ideas for a project, they
need to acknowledge where
those ideas came from. The
trick is to take good notes
and to learn to list the books,
articles, websites or other
source locations correctly.
Theres
some really good
stuff online that I
want to use in this
assignment.

Yeah! Same! But its such a

pain writing all these sources
down. Whats the point of
referencing when no one
looks at it?

Although referencing takes time,

its really important to record the
sources youve looked at when
writing your own assignments.

Well talk about references in the

last section of this guide, but for the
meantime, you need to know that
your source can be material that is
either published or unpublished.
A source can be...

Books, articles, or reports

Text, images (including tables or diagrams) or music from
the Internet
Information, ideas, or images taken from a TV progamme,
the radio (e.g., an interview, book review, documentary),
the Internet or from a film
Course, tutorial or lecture notes (old or new)
Material gathered from other students work (e.g., past
students essays, PowerPoint presentations, theses, etc.)
Words taken from a letter or email or any words spoken by
someone else.

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The rule is that any source you look up or use in the course of
creating your own assignment (essay, PowerPoint, project, etc.)
must be acknowledged. Why?
To show that youve gone beyond whats simply in your
own head; that youve considered others ideas, concepts,and
findings, and given them credit;
Yes, but its got to
be your considered
opinion. Its not
respectful to ignore
what others have said
on the subject.

But you said that we needed

to include our own opinion in
our assignment... but I got a D!

To sample what has been written in your discipline; to start

to map
who has been working in the area (the scholars, artists,
poets, engineers, scientists, etc.)
when they came up with their ideas (the times or context in
which they were developed).

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Ideas, theories, concepts or images always have a history or

genealogywhich means that they are part of ongoing work
in an area over time.

A reference means youve referred to a part of this ongoing work.

What youre trying to do is find

out who was working in the area
and when.

Who influenced these people?

What were they reacting to?
Who did they influence?

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Plagiarism can easily occur if you dont learn to reference. There are
different referencing styles, but each source will have a...
Commentator, author or creator
Title or heading of the source
Page spanif its an article or chapter in a book
Specific page numberfor a copied quotation
Date of publicationor when it was originally
written, presented, drawn or developed
Place of publicationthe institution or venue
where it was originally written, drawn, developed
or presented.

...and film, theatre,

websites, radio and TV
items too.

And you need to

reference music...

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References tell others...

The sources you have used in writing your assignment or

creating your project
That youve read across your area, which shows in turn that
you havent just done a quick flick; youve looked at heaps of
material
From the dates of your sources, people can see how careful
youve been in your own work
From the type of the sources you use, you tell others how
widely youve read and thought about this stuff.

A thin reference list usually means a thin piece of work.

References are like
musclesa tell-tale
sign of how much
work youve done on a
project.

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So, the key points so far are...

Studying is a journey
where you begin to learn
the history of an area.

Dont rip off

other peoples
ideas. Youve got
to respect the
work of others.

Youve got to
reference your
sourcesand I dont
mean these!

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It takes as much time

to get good at study as
it does to be good at
anything! There arent
any shortcuts.

The biggest problem youll have studying is trying to keep track

of lots of bits of information. Having a good way to save your
notesand then to search through them lateris the key. The
most important thing is to write down your references and the page
numbers of quotes you want to use as you go.

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TIPS FOR NOTE-MAKING

(to avoid plagiarism)
Making good notes is the secret to success if you want to do well.
Getting your diploma, certificate, or degree might take you a long
time so you need a system to help you remember. It will save you
time!
Arghhh!
Ive just spent half an hour trying to
find out where a quote came from!

Youll really rely on your

note-making systemnot
only to record what you read,
but to put your reactions
to what you read on paper.
The more studying you do,
the more youll need these
notes.

Yeah...
and although youll get
handouts from lectures,
writing your own notes
also helps you remember
and understand things
better.

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The best system to use is to have a set of notebooks or a

computer note-keeping system. or both! OneNote or Evernote
are both brilliant if you want to set up a system of notebooks
stored in the cloud.

Say goodbye to
random bits of paper.
You can keep as many
of these notebooks as
you like in the cloud.

OneNote is a set of notebooks you can create

electronically for your notes. It comes in
Microsoft Office Suite along with Word and
Excel.

A lot of plagiarism occurs because people forget to make a note

of the ideas theyve come across: who came up with the idea
and where did it come from (a book, article, play, the Internet,
etc.).
Youll be sorry if you dont reference
as you go. Learning to paraphrase or
learning to put others ideas in your own
words is a real skill.

You dont have to know the detail of everything you come

across but you do have to record this stuff in detail because
your references are the map of your learning journey.

In fact, the odd thing about

higher learning is that its
not about learning acts and
facts but about learning
how to think.

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The further on your learning journey you go, the more youll
realise that its not the stuff you know that counts but what you
do with what you discover.

Its how you process

material thats important.
Youve got to learn to think
in a different way. Youve
got to question, question,

question!

So dont take notes that are word-for-word from the text. Yes
jot down the gist of what you read, but your notebooks should
also include your questions and the links youre making.

A good idea is to draw a line near

the bottom of your notebook and
write down these questions and
the links you find.

And dont forget

to record your
sources as you go!

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Research just means that: we have to look at stuff again. We

have to re-search and re-think.

You dont have to learn this

stuff. You have to compare
different versions and
question it all.

The author talks

about how women are
second-class citizens...

...but the writer

ignores how power
works to keep women
at the bottom of the
food-chain.

Youll be much less likely to plagiarise if you think of yourself as

a detective. A detective needs to get things right or the evidence
will be thrown out of court. Your notes will do four things:
FIRST, they will record WHAT you saw or heardwhich must be an
accurate record of what you find.

You need to interview a lot of

peopleor read through a lot of
booksto get a sense of who is
saying what.

Just like a detective, who has to include some word-for-word

accounts of what happened with dates and times, youll be
recording the same sort of evidencewhich is just another
name for the data or information you gather.

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SECOND, your notes will help you to compare and contrast what
you find.
Check whats being stated, one against the other.
What gaps are there between the stories? Who seems to
be getting the story right; whos reliable?
Check out your witnesses (authors/commentators).
Are they a credible witness (authoritative)?

Youll be analysing who said what

in your researchbut putting this in
your own words.

You only need to

quote something
word-for-word if
you need it for
evidence.

If you use a quote, you have

to write down the exact page
number(s) of the source it
came from.
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THIRD, your notes will help you look at wider trendswho

exercises power (gender power, aged power, ethnic dominance) and
at whose expense?
Learning at this level is
all about seeing patterns
between the local and
the global.

FOURTH, your notes will help you

to come to conclusions based on
your best judgement of the whole
narrative. You should be doing some
upside-down thinking by now.
You should be asking questions of
what appears normal.

Why is New Zealand

always at the bottom of a
map? What if the map was
turned the other way?

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So. have you got that?

Dont use random bits of paper for

note-taking. You need a system you
can build on over time.

Never take notes that are word-for-word from what you are reading
or listening to. Notes are to help you work through your own ideas.

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HOW NOT TO PLAGIARISE

The most obvious way of not plagiarising is to leave yourself enough
time to get your assignment done so 1) you wont be tempted
to borrow too much from others or 2) you wont muck up your
citations and references.
I have, but the
more reading and
thinking I do, the
more confused I
get!

Oh heck! This
assignments due
Monday and I
havent started
writing it yet!

I didnt get
muscles like
these from doing
nothing!

Doing all the reading and

note-making and thinking for
an assignment will take quite
a bit of energy and effort.
Writing well takes a lot of
practice. You will only get
out of your studies what
you put into them.

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Running short of time is a recipe for disaster! A lot of plagiarism

happens because people dont leave themselves enough time to
do the work needed.

A lot of my
students find
writing hard so
they borrow
others words.

I always recommend they keep a

notebook of good words and phrases
to use in their assignments.

We all struggle to find the right word or phrase, so start a

notebook that has in it...
Good sentence beginnings
Really good phrases youve come across that you can use
Conjunctions, or joining words or phrases that help you turn
the corner in sentences
Alternative words because we all have favourite words we
tend to overuse
Ways to round off your work; endings are hard!

Use your writing notebook to help you paraphrase the ideas

youve read or heard. A lot of plagiarism occurs because people
dont know how to paraphrase properly.
Paraphrasing means to re-phrase without copying the exact
words. Its like writing a summary.
Its a bit of a balancing act.
You want to keep the meaning
of the ideas youre borrowing
without using the exact words
of the author or speaker.

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There are some good sites to visit to help you learn to

paraphrase but here is an example to show you

ORIGINAL TEXT

When students rush their assignments, there is a greater chance that

they will borrow quite heavily from the sources they have been reading.
Some students even think that stringing a lot of quotations together from
different writers is enough for them to pass an assignment. What needs
to be made clear to them is that only 10% of their work should include
the direct words or voice of others, and that the whole point of an
assignment is to present your own ideas in your own words.

AN OKAY PARAPHRASE OF THIS TEXT

Hill and colleagues (2015) argue that a lot of plagiarism is the result
of students leaving their assignments to the last minute. A well written
assignment is one where the students voice comes through clearly in
the text. One of the biggest failings is where students overuse quotations.

THIS IS NOT OKAY!

Stringing together a lot of quotations from different authors is not good

writing. Usually, students borrow heavily from other sources because
they rush their work. About 10% of an assignment should be the direct
words or voice of others.

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As a rule of thumb, signal where you borrowed the idea (picture,

diagram, table, or set of statistics) from by using what is called
an in-text citation

No one can say you

tried to cheat if youve
put the name of the
author in the text or in
brackets beside the idea.

And use quotation marks around the bits you borrow.with

the page number(s) as well.

If in doubt, use a citation.

There are a number of
software programmes
that you can get to help
you with referencing,
among them being

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The only time where you dont need to cite a source is for things
that are commonly known. This is a grey area because whats
common to you might not be to me, and common facts change
over time.
I can remember
when I was at school
there were only nine
planets

Yeah.
there are hundreds now,
and Plutos only a chunk
of ice!

One of the
best online
sites to visit is
plagiarism.org

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In short, whatever referencing style you use, you must credit

your ideas to the people who influenced you. You do this by
including in-text citations and then by referencing these sources
within your work.

There are heaps of

referencing styles. Think
of them as different tools
in a toolbox. Find out
what style you need to
use for each subject.

In this e-age, most learning

institutions will get you to put your
assignment through plagiarism
detection software. Some of the
most well-known names include...

Ill make a right

monkey out of you
if you cheat!!

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If your work doesnt pass the test and come out as your own
work, you can guarantee it will come back to bite you later.

What do you mean

you didnt do the
landing module?

Heaps of people
have been caught for
plagiarising their quals.
We hope this little guide
helps you realise that the
only person who really
loses will be you!

WellI was sick at

the time so kind of
borrowed my friends
answers.

Guides youll find helpful

Wikipedia has a good overview of plagiarism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism

Plagiarism.org is the best website to visit.

http://www.plagiarism.org/

The Little Book of Plagiarism is also an excellent source that

you can retrieve by typing in the title and searching for the file
(PDF file). There are various versions available for free download.
http://www.stir.ac.uk/media/schools/artsandhumanities/english/
BookofPlagiarism.pdf

The University of Canterbury has produced a great little guide

with a question and answer challenge that helps you identify
when you need to cite a source.
http://www.lps.canterbury.ac.nz/lsc/documents/plagiarism_07_05.pdf

How to cite this publication source:

Hill, D. J. (2015). A beginners guide to plagiarism. Wellington: Ako
Aotearoa.

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Im Debs. Im an academic who has taught

Political Philosophy of Education in several New
Zealand universities over the past 30 years.
My passion is to help people to think for
themselves, to think critically and learn to
question everything. For me, this is what
education is all about.

You can find me

working at the Creative
Hub in the Whanganui
Learning Centre.
My email address is
[email protected]

Acknowledgements
Grateful thanks go to all those who contributed to this little guide. Thanks go especially to Gail
Harrison (Whanganui Learning Centre), Hemi Hireme (Te Wananga o Aotearoa ) and Ian Rowe
(Ako Aotearoa, Central Hub), without whose help this guide would never have been created.
Thanks also go to Dr Sonja Ellis (Sheffield Hallam University, UK); Dr Dave Hufton (Rolleston, UK);
Professor Greg Lee (University of Canterbury); Anne-Marie ONeill (Palmerston North); Dr Scott
Ray (Auckland); Naida Sharp (Marlborough); Sally Jane Smith (Whanganui); Jenny Song (Waikato
Institute of Technology); and Lynley Tulloch (University of Waikato) for advice about the content.
Many thanks to Kim Ahern and Vicki Campbell for their graphics support.

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An Ako Aotearoa publication 2015.

Support for this work was provided by Ako Aotearoa through its Regional Hub Project Funding scheme.

This work is published under the Creative Commons 3.0 New Zealand Attribution Non-commercial Share
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