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Lambeth College LRC - Study Support: Plagiarism

How to Avoid Plagiarism

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is when you use someone’s work or ideas as your own without citing your source or giving credit to the original source.

For Example:

  • Plagiarism is a serious offence in academic writing if you copy word for word, or with slight changes from books, journals, websites, videos, audio and etc. without citing and referencing the full details of all sources.
  • Plagiarism includes not correctly referencing other people's words or ideas in your assignments.
  • Plagiarism also include buying custom essay writing services or essay mills to write your essays for you and copying your fellow student's work.

Colleges and Universities have strict rules about plagiarism and use plagiarsim ditection software like Turnitin. Plagiarism is serious offence that can damage your academic progress.

How to avoid plagiarism

  • Give yourself enough time to complete your assignment.
  • Understand what your teacher expects you to do for your assignment.
  • Learn about note-taking:
    • write your notes in your own words.
    • learn how to paraphrase someone’s concept or idea, cite and reference sources properly.
    • learn to summarise someone's concept or idea
    • use “quotations” to show your sources and expand your argument evidently.
  • Learn how to write references and bibliography of sources at the end of your assignment.

The following video gives you advice on how to avoid plagiarism and explains how Turnitin picks out plagiarised material.

Using Turnitin to Avoid Plagiarism

Quotation

Quatation is used "to provide an unchanged section of text you have read as evidence to support your opinions" and expand your analysis of   the orginal concept or idea you have copied words for words (LSBU Library and Learning Resources, 2022). 

If you copy someone's work, please use quotation marks and cite to acknowledge the source.

Example:

  • Brown (2010, p.43) states that “A good beauty routine should always start with skincare.”

or

  • It was states that “A good beauty routine should always start with skincare” (Brown, 2010, p.43).

Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is used "to explain a concept or  idea you have read in your own words without changing the author's original point" (LSBU Library and Learning Resources, 2022).

Paraphrasing can help you avoid plagiarism by citing and referencing the sources properly where you get the information and ideas from.

Summary

Summary is used "to provide an explanation of text you have read in a concise way that only highlights the most relevant points needed to understand the author's original argument or assertion" (LSBU Library and Learning Resources, 2022).

Please watch the video below to learn how you can quote, paraphase and summarise someone's ideas in your own words in different ways.

 

Paraphrase

 

Why do you need citations, references and bibliography?

Using citations, references and bibliography help you avoid plagiarism, which can show all the research you have done on the subject evidently. Citing, referencing and bibliography can also help your tutors to check:

  • the work is yours,
  • your understanding on the subject, and
  • whether your assignment evidence based analyses on the subject.

References and Bibliography

The Harvard referencing system is commonly used to reference sources in colleges and universities throughout the UK. The referneces list contains the full details of all sources you have used to write your assignments. Whereas bibliography includes the full details of all source you have read in preparation to write your assignments.

Books:    

Author, Initials., (Year). Title (Italic). Edition. Place of publication: Name of Publisher.

Example:

  • O’Donnell, G., (2002). Mastering Sociology. 4th ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Websites:

Author or Source, (Year). Title of web page (Italic) [Online]. Available at: web site address (URL) [Accessed date].

Example:

  • BBC News, (2012). Why do people dress up their pets? [Online]. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16943314 (Accessed 07/02/2012).
Journals or Magazines

Author, Initials., (Year). Title of article (Italic). Full Title of Journal, Volume number (Issue/Part number), Page numbers.

Example:

  • Marsh, Ian., (2011). The press portrayal of crime. Sociology Review Vol.3 (5), pp.12-14.

To learn more about Harverd referencing system, please watch the video below.

referencing

 

Further sources of help and tips

Lambeth College Referencing Guide

South Bank University Guide to Harvard Referencing System

Anglia Ruskin Guide to Harvard Referencing System

Find out more about the levels of plagiarism and see examples

University of Essex [pdf]

Glasgow Caledonian University

University of North Carolina

Sources

Lambeth College Library and Learning Resources, (2021).  Plagiarism [Online]. Available at: https://moodle.lambeth.ac.uk/pluginfile.php/112359/mod_resource/content/1/Plagiarism.pdf (Accessed 07/02/2022).

LSBU Library and Learning Resources, (2022).  Harvard Referencing: Plagiarism [Online]. Available at:https://library.lsbu.ac.uk/harvardreferencing/plagiarism (Accessed 15/02/2022).

University of Derby, (2021).  A guide to Harvard Referencing [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDgqqPvMn0U (Accessed 16/02/2022).

Weaver, A. (2013).  Quote, paraphrase and Summary [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ral3ldBxQxA (Accessed 17/02/2022).