Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism

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TYPES OF PLAGIARISM The word plagiarism was derived from the Latin word plagiarius which means ‘kidnapper.’ The use of this word cannot be traced in the English language up until the onset of the 15th century circa 1620. Grammatically, plagiarism is defined as the illegal appropriation as well as theft and publication of another writer’s, author’s or any other creative’s content (ideas), style, language among other authentic aspects of his / her work and then forwarding them or claiming them as your original work. Whereas plagiarism is not a civil or criminal offense, it is considered as a serious breach of ethical codes and conducts of both journalistic and academic worlds and usually bears serious consequences if discovered or detected in …show more content…

This iteration of plagiarism usually happens when a given person forgets to cite their actual sources, or when they wrongly quote these sources or even unintentionally / unknowingly mentions a source using the same sentence structure or group of words as a source in his work (Donev, 2014). Unfortunately, even the lack of prior intent to plagiarize does not excuse nor absolve a student from being responsible for this literary vice. Ultimately, it is the onus of the students to learn how to correctly cite their desired sources and also how to come up accurate and authentic citations when doing their research. Just like the rest of the aforementioned literary vices, accidental plagiarism is even considered as dangerous as any other type of plagiarism and subject to similar consequences as …show more content…

With that said, different academic establishments have their unique ways of dealing with cases of plagiarism as well as various set penalties for such. At the University of Kentucky for instance, the least penalty for plagiarism is a straight zero on the plagiarized assignment for first time ‘minor offenders’. For subsequent ‘major offenders,’ the Senate of the faculty of the course they are taking recommends more severe penalties. Also, Senate rules of most institutes bar those who have been penalized for plagiarism from absconding from the sequence in which the plagiarism offense occurred for whatsoever reason (College of Arts & Science, 2016). Different institutions will have varying degrees of penalties for academic crimes such as plagiarism with some establishments having extreme measures such as student suspension or even total

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