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The American Heritage Dictionary defines plagiarism as using and passing forth the ideas or writings of another as one's own…

 

AVOIDING PLAGIARISM: A GUIDE FOR STUDENTS

Plagiarism is a serious offense that may ruin a career at any professional or educational institution. Suspension or expulsions are not rare consequences when considering plagiarism. Copying someone else’s ideas is not only unfair, but also unethical; therefore it is imperative for all students to avoid any sort of illegal use of ideas. The key strategy is to always provide citations to give credit to deserving authors.

For more information on what plagiarism is and how to avoid it, give the following web sites a try.

 

University of Florida Guidelines

 

• Graduate Student Handbook  (see section on Integrity)
• UF Academic Honesty Guidelines

 

Anti-Plagiarism Resources & Strategies

• Avoiding Plagiarism - Provides guidelines on how to avoid plagiarism.
• Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It – Indiana University provides many tips on how to prevent a possible act of plagiarism.
• Plagiarism and How to Avoid It – David Gardner gives a detailed analysis of plagiarism and how to stay away from it.
• Plagiarism Theme Page - Offers curricular resources and reference materials about plagiarism.
• What is Plagiarism? - Georgetown University Honor Council provides a very detailed explanation of plagiarism.

 

Articles and Essays about Plagiarism

• Brilliant or Plagiarized? Colleges Use Sites to Expose Cheaters – An article by Verne Kopytoff from the New York Times.
• Plagiarism in Colleges in the USA – Thorough explanation of plagiarism and provides specific examples of how universities have dealt with plagiarists in the past.
• Plagiarism: highway robbery in the classroom – Kathy Bell explains how plagiarism is not worth risking academic integrity.
• Point, Click, Plagiarize / Web site nabs UC Berkeley students stealing from Net – An article by Tanya Schevitz from the San Francisco Chronicle.

 

Students take note of the plagiarism detection systems that are available to faculty:

• Plagiarism.org - Described as an "online resource for educators concerned with the growing problem of Internet Plagiarism."
• Plagiarized.com - Site designed to determine if academic work was obtained from the Internet.
• Turnitin at UF - purchased Turnitin.com’s services for faculty to search the Internet to locate duplicated material in minutes.
• WCopyfind – Free software detection system developed by Virginia University’s Louis Bloomfield.