Plagiarism

Seite 1

Plagiarism

Before you start with Assignments 02, please read the following information to avoid plagiarism.

Avoiding plagiarism

When writing an assignment, it is easy to quote someone else and inadvertently to forget to cite the source. While compiling your assignment, many websites, and many different ideas clamour for attention in your head. It is so easy to copy and paste a quote while forgetting to provide the source of that quote. It is equally easy to copy an entire section of someone else's work. However, even if you did not mean to plagiarise, doing it has important consequences. Plagiarism, intentional or not, is a very serious matter. Take the following steps to ensure that you do not plagiarise in your assignment:

a) It is usually better to paraphrase ideas than to quote directly. In other words, read the source text and then put the ideas into your own words. But even when paraphrasing, you need to acknowledge the original source!

b) Whenever you use a fact, phrase, chart or quotation that you have obtained from someone else, acknowledge the original source.

c) Keep careful notes of every source you consult when working on an assignment. Use a reference citation system such as EndNote, Reference Manager, RefWorks or ProCite to keep your notes in order.

d) Never copy and paste anything from the internet without also copying the URL where you found it. Later you will be able to go back to the same page, check the wording, and give a proper citation.

e) If you think you may be using someone else's writing, copy and paste the passage into Google or another search engine. If your search comes up with close hits, your passage may well not be original work!

Resources to help you understand and avoid plagiarism

a) Unisa’s official plagiarism policy can be found at:http://www.unisa.ac.za/contents/colleges/col_grad_studies/docs/Policy_copyright_infringement_plagiar....

b) Visit plagiarism.org for various insights into plagiarism and how to avoid it. Available here: http://www.plagiarism.org/.

Examples of how to cite references in your text

Note that a more detailed guide (Guidelines for referencing_UJ Fairhurst.pdf) on referencing is accessible via the Additional Resources function on myUnisa.

a) One author

If the author’s name occurs naturally in the sentence, the year is given in parentheses and year followed by a colon with page number (no space):

• In a popular study Harvey (1992) argued …

• As Harvey (1992:21) said, … .

b) Two authors

If the names of the authors occur naturally in the sentence, the year is given in parentheses and year followed by a colon with page number (no space):

• In a popular study Harvey and Zuma (1992) argued … .

• As Harvey and Zuma (1992:21) said, “… “.

c) More than two authors

If more than two authors, give the surname of the first author followed by et al.

• Office costs amount to 20% of total costs in most businesses (Wilson et al 1997).

• Wilson et al (1997) pointed out that office costs amount to 20% of total costs in most businesses.

Examples on how to compile a reference list

Your reference list should always be in alphabetical order and the information that you need to provide is shown in the following examples:

a) A book reference:

Single author:

Author’s surname, Initial(s), Date. Title of book in italics. Edition. Place: Publisher followed by a full stop at end of the reference.

Example: Dow, D, 1964. A history of the world. Third edition. London: Greenfield.

Two authors:

first author’s surname, Initial(s) and second author’s surname, Initial(s). Date. Title of book in italics. Edition. Place: Publisher.

Example: Mercer, PA and Smith, G, 1993. Private view data in the UK. Second edition. London: Longman.

Three authors:

first author’s surname, Initial(s), second author’s surname, Initial(s) and third author’s surname, initial(s). Date. Title of book in italics. Place: Publisher.

Example: Cutler, T, Williams, K and Williams, J. 1986. Keynes, Beveridge and beyond. London: Routledge. Note that et al should not be used in the reference list.

b) A journal article reference:

Author, AA, and Author, BB, Year. Title of article. Title of journal (italics). Volume (issue), pages (no space between page numbers and the dash).

Example: Evans, W.A., 1994. Approaches to intelligent information retrieval. Information Processing and Management, 7 (2), 147–168.

c) An internet reference:

Web page, website, e-book.

The first date in the examples below refers to the last update or the copyright date. The last date refers to when the website was accessed.

Examples:

• Holland, M., 2004. Guide to citing Internet sources [online]. Poole, Bournemouth University. Available from: http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/library/using/guide_to_citing_internet_sourc.html [Accessed 4 November 2004].

• Reference to a home page

o African National Congress. 1994. The reconstruction and development programme. http://www/polity.org.za/govdocs/rdp/rdp/html [21 June 1999].

Example of how to paraphrase in your own words

It is often difficult to avoid quoting, but with a little bit of practice it is always possible. Consider the examples below and continually practice paraphrasing during the semester.

a) Quote from an article with in-text reference:“The transition to a new era of coastal management was signalled by the Department’s acknowledgement that a participatory policy formulation process was needed to address the shortcomings of previous efforts. This shift in approach cannot be divorced from the wider political context” (Glavovic, 2006:893).

b) Own words with in-text reference:The evolution in coastal management was put in motion when the Department admitted that the shortcomings of previous attempts needed to be dealt with by means of a participatory policy formulation process. The use of a new approach should not be separated from the overall political context (Glavovic, 2006).