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Research and Documentation
Academic Honesty and Avoiding Plagiarism:
A Self-Guided Tutorial
by Michael Fleming
What is plagiarism in academic writing?
Academic life is all about the exchange of ideas, and even though lectures and seminars are an important part of this exchange, the real work of learning and scholarship is conducted mainly through writing. It is only natural, then, that colleges and universities carefully regulate the way ideas are exchanged through written discourse. Above all, ideas and the words used to express ideas must be credited properly; failure to do so, whether intentionally or not, is plagiarism—a serious offense that often has serious consequences.
Strictly speaking, plagiarism in academic writing can consist of:
- failure to cite (that is, properly credit) words or ideas borrowed from another writer
- failure to use quotation marks to indicate the words of another writer
- failure to use one's own wording in summaries and paraphrases of another writer's words
Any one of these offenses can result in a charge of plagiarism. All members of the academic community—professors and administrators as well as students—are held to the same standards.