Avoiding plagiarism is about protecting copyright, i.e. the intellectual property of people’s work.
The principles of copyright are set out in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which was first signed in 1886 and last amended in 1976. It is supplemented by the 1996 World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright that relates to information technology and the Internet.
As a basic principle, all literary works are copyrighted for at least 50 years after the author's death.
To avoid plagiarism, you need to:
- Cite the information sources you have used – and in sufficient detail that other people can find and read these sources
- Get permission to reproduce tables or figures from a previous publication
- Indicate directly copied material by using quote marks and a reference e.g. Smith et al. described ‘diamond-shaped crystals’….(Smith et al. 2021, p. 12) N.B. Ensure that the wording of any quotes is identical to that of the original text.
- Use your own words and phrasing when you are describing other people’s findings (this is ‘paraphrasing’) —you still need to indicate the original source by citing the reference
- Make a general summary of other people’s work using your own words and context (this is ‘summarising’) —you still need to indicate the original source by citing the reference
Plagiarism detection software
- Vary in amount of text checked, pricing
- SDU uses e.g. Ouriginal, SafeAssign, iThenticate
Commonly used programmes:
- https://www.paperrater.com
- PerfectIt
- Quetext
- Plagiarism Checker from Grammarly