The term "plagiarism" comes from the Greek "plagion," which meaning "to steal." Plagiarism, to put it simply, is the theft of another person's intellectual property (such as their ideas, research, or literary work) for one's own use. Academic dishonesty has been committed. Today's universities take this kind of unethical behavior very seriously and do all they can to prevent it.

 

One kind of plagiarism is called "direct plagiarism," and it occurs when a piece of someone else's work is copied verbatim without attribution or quotation marks.

This behavior is very unethical and may result in disciplinary action. 

 

Here's an example: 

 

A student author recalls that long before there was any recorded history, these islands were the vacation spot for a hundred times as many fish, sea lions, and other species as there are people now.

 

Millions of contented birds formerly called these islands home, as well as tens of millions of fish, sea lions, and other species that have since vanished. 

 

We can observe that the bolded text is an exact word-for-word reproduction of the source material. This is a very obvious instance of plagiarism.

 

Second, students often engage in self-plagiarism. It happens when a student resubmits an already-submitted research paper or incorporates parts of another student's paper without permission from the relevant instructors. It may seem ridiculous, but the reason this is seen as unethical conduct is so that a student researcher would see themselves as on par with their professional counterparts. It's unacceptable to treat people differently.

 

Thirdly, mosaic plagiarism occurs when a student writer does not replicate another writer's work word for word but instead takes the basic concept, keeps the sentence structure the same, and rewrites the extract using synonyms or comparable meaning terms. The use of footnotes to reference sources is not exempt from the stigma of academic dishonesty. Patch Writing is a kind of plagiarism that involves heavily paraphrasing the original text.

 

Example: Student Author: Just two short years later, the once-welcoming Sioux were met with new hardships, including as widespread famine and the imposition of martial rule on all of their reservations.

 

Look at where these peaceful Indians were only two years ago and where they are now: martial rule has been declared on all of their reservations, and many of them are on the verge of famine.

 

We note that despite the changes in wording, the meaning of these two paragraphs is still the same. Mosaic Plagiarism seems to be the case.

 

Accidental Plagiarism occurs when a student fails to properly acknowledge his or her sources, or when he or she paraphrases an extract without providing a citation. This may also occur if the additional reference is so disorganized that the original document cannot be located. This kind of plagiarism is equally unacceptable, and ignorance of the law will not protect you if you do it.