00:00: Welcome to Unit 2 on referencing and plagiarism. In this segment, we are going to be focusing on the definition, reasons, implications, and what and when you need or not to reference. What is referencing? Referencing entails acknowledging all the sources you have used or referred to in your work. For instance, when writing an academic essay or a thesis, you will use information from sources such as textbooks, academic journals, websites, and others.
00:56: You will review and analyse this information and form your own ideas, backed with evidence to develop your informed argument. So, this is referencing. To do this successfully, you need to systematically provide full details of the author, initials, dates, title, and publication specifics of any material used in the time you have used them. For sources such as e-journals, e-books, and web pages, you need to include URL – which is uniform resource locator access – and the date you accessed the material or the source.
01:42: Remember, all the sources cited in your work must be arranged alphabetically. More information will be made available in the latter session. Why do we reference? A good academic practice is to reference for reasons which include, but are not limited to: demonstrating in-depth and breadth of understanding of our research; providing academic credibility to your argument; making sources used traceable and verifiable; recognising the copyrighted contribution of other scholars; and, most importantly, preventing students from any possible accusation of plagiarism.
02:38: Being a grave academic offense, it is vital to constantly explain what plagiarism is, why it is important, its different forms, and how it can be presented and prevented. Plagiarism: it’s a term that describes presenting other people’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.
03:22: In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else’s idea or work and lying about it afterward. Also regarded as the stealing of intellectual property, plagiarism comes in different forms – ranging from turning in someone else’s work as your own; copying words or ideas from someone else’s work without giving credit, or failing to put a quotation in quotation marks; providing incorrect information about the source of a quotation; changing words, but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit; to as many words or ideas from a source that make up the majority of the work, whether you give credit or not.
04:17: As for different types, plagiarism can be complete in instances where students only take the work of another person and submit it as their own, in their own name. It can be accidental. Students forgot to provide in-text citations and references. This is the most common occurrence among students. It’s a very common occurrence among students. Another one is verbatim and direct plagiarism, when the student copies text from somebody’s work and pastes without citations.
04:58: This is also common among students. We have source-based plagiarism where students use secondary data source, but only cite the primary source. We can have auto-plagiarism in situations where students use or resubmit previously written work as a form of new assignment.
05:18: As colleges, universities, and other higher institutions of learning doesn’t take the academic dishonesty lightly, it is essential to stress that the consequences of plagiarism could be mild – great penalty, or awarding automatic zero. It could be moderate – failing the course – or severe, leading to academic probation, suspension, or expulsion, depending on the severity and the type of offense.
05:50: In some cases, students accused of plagiarism did so unintentionally owing to a limited understanding of what constitutes plagiarism, uncertainty about how to cite, poor organisation and time management, as well as failure to understand the university policies. So, to avoid plagiarism, students need to come up with their own original ideas while at the same time referring to work already done by other scholars.
06:27: Proper planning of sources and how to include information obtained in your paper represent one of the useful ways of preventing plagiarism. These can be further enhanced through effective note-taking and organisation of information gathered before writing. Failure to observe these often lead to misquotations and improper citations, which are both forms of plagiarism.
06:58: Also, students need to learn how to paraphrase properly. By paraphrasing, I mean restating in your own words another person’s ideas. Crucially, paraphrasing represents one of the commonly used ways of incorporating ideas, opinions, arguments from another source into one’s writing. This involves taking ideas or information from an external source and curtly rephrasing or summarising it using your own words.
07:34: Doing this helps to achieve the original meaning of the text without copying its exact wordings. It is however crucial to stress that changing or merely replacing a few words from the original sentence does not make genuine paraphrasing. Therefore, you need to change both the words and the sentence structure without changing the content of your paraphrasing to be legitimate. You additionally need to know that paraphrased texts still require proper citation as those ideas emanated from other sources, even though you have presented them in your own words.
08:20: Ensuring proper paraphrasing will not only make ideas from original sources aptly fit into your work, but also help to emphasise relevant points whilst removing irrelevant or unrelated information. Analysing and evaluating sources is also another important way of avoiding plagiarism. As you may be aware, not all sources you have come across whilst reading or researching are worth citing.
08:56: In fact, some may not be credible or appropriate for the intended use. So, how do you tell which academic sources are appropriate and credible for your research? I will recommend using the CRAAP test to evaluate your sources based on five key criteria: currency, relevance, authority, accuracy, and purpose. If you have questions or unsure of something about plagiarism, you should ask your tutor, who will be most likely and be very happy to answer your questions and provide clarification on any ambiguous area.
09:43: Lastly, if you can aptly master and follow the guidelines for citing sources alongside other advice provided here, you should have no problem with plagiarism. So with this, we’ve talked about plagiarism and referencing. I will see you in the next unit for the next topic. Thank you.