Academia Stack Exchange
Academia Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [plagiarism]

Plagiarism is the practice of taking credit for someone else’s work.

Plagiarism is the unethical practice of taking credit for someone else’s work. It is a major concern both in research, where the most common issue is improper use of citations (or lack thereof), and in coursework assignments.

Self-plagiarism refers to reusing one's own previously published work (or previously used coursework), without properly citing it as such.

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How can I determine whether a student has written an excellent paper themselves, or hired someone else to do it?

In class, over the course of a semester, I tend to build up a mental model of individual students' communication abilities. For example, one student might seem more or less eloquent than another when they speak. One might make more cogent points…
John Doucette
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Why is plagiarising words such a big deal?

Plagiarising the ideas of others is obviously a big deal. You are stealing the hard work of others and misleading your peers by pretending it is your original work. But why is plagiarising words and paragraphs considered a big deal? I mean, isn't…
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How to penalize students who copy each other but don't realize they have plagiarized?

I gave my students an opportunity to rewrite one of their papers for extra points. As I was grading, I realized that two papers were almost identical. They had a similar structure, organization, and presented ideas in a similar manner. I asked the…
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Realised afterwards that I committed mild plagiarism in a paper I wrote as an undergraduate, what should I do?

A few years back, while still an undergraduate student, I wrote and submitted a paper to a (low-tier) journal. It was accepted and published. None of the professors in my college were familiar with the subfield in question, so I did it all on my…
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If I receive written permission to use content from a paper without citing, is it plagiarism?

Let's say I find an article online. I contact the writer of this article and, without expecting anything in return, they agree to give me full, unrestricted rights to use any portion of their article, including directly using quotes from the…
Jon
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Is it plagiarism if someone else came up with something before you did?

Say you come up with an idea, but X already has written about it before, even though you don't know about this. Is it plagiarism to then publish the idea, even if during publishing you still are not aware that X came up with this idea first? That…
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How to handle student plagiarism appropriately?

I am nearing the end of teaching a course for first year students with a fellow student. We assigned a paper and 2 students have submitted almost identical papers. The policy is that if a student is caught they get a 0 and possible legal action on…
Memj
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Is verbatim copying of short technical phrases without quotes but with citation considered plagiarism?

My question is similar to Is verbatim copying several paragraphs of text with citation considered plagiarism?, but I want to ask about very short, concise wordings. As an example, I read a paper in which the author uses the following…
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Is changing some words plagiarism?

I'm looking for a clear, definitive answer to the following question: Is taking someone else's writing, and changing some of the words, inherently plagiarism? I find resources that describe plagiarism are usually a bit vague around this issue. For…
Daniel R. Collins
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I Plagiarised, what punishment can I expect?

I am a university student, doing a scientific bachelor study. I plagiarised multiple exercises from multiple homework sets for three different classes, all in all about 50% of all the homework for those three classes. I passed the final exams of…
user17965
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Is it plagiarism when copying something that you have written before?

I am writing an essay and I have previously written and submitted an essay to a different professor about a similar subject. Would it be considered plagiarism if I copied my own exact sentences from my previous essay?
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What to do about a student whom I suspect of having plagiarized but who claims not to have?

I caught a student plagiarizing on a programming assignment by copying someone else's code and replacing some variable/function names. I gave the student a zero, and shortly afterward he emailed me maintaining that he's innocent and I'm falsely…
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Students not answering emails about plagiarism

I am a PhD student in the US and teaching a lab this semester. The labs have become online and students are provided with data and submit their reports. All communications take place through email. There is also online office hours but relatively…
Instructor
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Reference regarded as plagiarism

I was writing answers for my assignment about corruption, I put an example I took from an article from the web and cited it in APA format. I found out that my reference has been tagged as plagiarism. The title of the article which I wrote in my…
Forace Kryr
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What should I do about a tricky situation regarding a student who plagiarized twice?

On the syllabus of an elective college course, I have stated that a student who plagiarizes once will receive a zero for the assignment. A student who plagiarizes twice will receive zeros for the assignments and may withdraw or take an F for the…
Dan
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