Plagiarism means using someone else’s work without giving them proper credit. In academic writing, plagiarizing involves using words, ideas, or information from a source without citing it correctly. In practice, this can mean a few different things.
| Examples of plagiarism | Why is it wrong? |
| Copying parts of a text word for word, without quotation marks | It makes it seem like these are your own words. |
| Paraphrasing a text by changing a few words or altering the sentence structure, without citing the source | It makes it seem like you came up with the idea, when in fact you just rephrased someone else’s idea. |
| Giving incorrect information about a source | If readers can’t find the cited source, they can’t check the information themselves. |
| Quoting so much from a source that it makes up the majority of your text | Even with proper citations, you’re not making an original contribution if you rely so much on someone else’s words. |
| Reusing work you’ve submitted for a previous assignment, without citing yourself | Even though it’s your own work, the reader should be informed that it’s not completely new but comes from previous research. |
| Submitting a text written entirely by someone else (e.g., a paper you bought from a ghostwriter) | Not doing the work yourself is academically dishonest, undermines your learning, and is unfair to other students. |
Source: Scribbr
Consequences of Plagiarism
Plagiarism may not seem like a big deal, but there can be some severe and/or long lasting effects:
