Plagiarism, My Understanding
Plagiarism is the term used for when someone is caught using material which they have not referenced to show where the information may have came from. This is similar to the school term ‘copying each other’. This can be classed as fraud and can be charged a fine whether it is performed intentionally or not. This can easily be avoided by keeping note of any websites that you have visited (even if this isn’t used but just using the ‘gist’ of the information) as well as stating clearly any external and primary sources used to get any information to use publicly and finally by keeping note of any books used to help further your studies. This should include the minimum of the author and title of the book. An example of plagiarism would be if I used the following:
Publishing rights in the United States and Canada will be given to Shaye Areheart, who was the original editor of Moonwalk. Her company is a part of Random House Inc. Moonwalk has been out of print for more than a decade. It was originally published by Doubleday and was acquired by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. If I was to then say I wrote this without using the URL: http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2009-07-23-jackson-moonwalk_N.htm to show where I got this information I could receive a fine from £100 to £1000 dependant on how severe each case is. This information came from: [1]
Although plagiarism is most commonly associated with online information and ICT based work, the same rules and laws also apply to the correct referencing of books, magazine etc. There are also websites such as www.Neilstoolbox.com which can used to paste 50 words of an essay or article into the website, this then searches a database of existing material to see whether or not it has been plagiarised. Today’s referencing system is based around the original rules set by Harvard. These rules can be found at: [2]
[1] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article1934948.ecea
[2] http://education.exeter.ac.uk/dll/studyskills/harvard_referencing.htm
