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Social Sciences - Research Skills - Intermediate

In this course you will learn how to determine your need for information; find information effectively and efficiently; check information carefully; process and save information.

What is plagiarism?

If you do not include proper references in your work, you could be accused of plagiarism: passing off others' work, ideas or arguments as your own. Plagiarism is regarded as fraud and is taken very seriously in the academic world. If you commit plagiarism during your studies, you could face serious punishment including exclusion from a course or even expulsion from the university. For academics, plagiarism can mean the end of their career.

What is regarded as plagiarism?

The following are clear examples of plagiarism:

  • Handing in somebody else's work as if it is your own.
  • Copying passages, long or short, from a source without acknowledging it.

But the following also count as plagiarism:

  • ‘Borrowing' somebody else's words or ideas without acknowledgement.
  • Making just a few changes to a text, graph or diagram and then claiming it as your own.
  • ‘Forgetting' to put quotation marks around a literal quote. HAN explains
  • Including an incorrect or incomplete reference, so that the source cannot be traced.
  • Not including a reference every time you draw upon a particular source; this is equivalent to passing off part of the information used as your own work.
  • Using so many words or ideas from a source that they make up the bulk of your paper – even if you do credit the source!

But you are also expected to develop your own ideas in a report or dissertation. You cannot just cobble together existing information – you have to add something original to it. For example, you can compare what you have found in different sources and draw your own conclusions about the topic. Or you could apply ideas taken from the literature to a new situation.

As long as you acknowledge all your sources carefully and include sufficient new ideas in your work, you do not need to worry about being accused of plagiarism. HAN provides some tips

You do not need to provide literature references for:

  • your own original ideas and conclusions
  • generally known facts (things that you and your readers know without having to look them up).