Plagiarism Guide - Swinburne University of Technology

Avoiding plagiarism and cheatingA guide for students at Swinburne University of TechnologyPlagiarism Type 3: Individual assignment – using other people’s published workThe third way in which students plagiarise or cheat is to use the ideas, words or workfrom published sources and submit these in an assessment task as their own.A student who takes material (in part or whole) from the Internet, a book, chapter, article,database, pamphlet, brochure or any other source, and includes it in their assignmentwithout letting the reader know where the material came from, has committedplagiarism.Example 3a: Not PlagiarismYou use published material in your assignments but each time you do so, you let thereader know that you have done so by citing the original source. For example (and pleasenote that the example used here is artificial, that is, there is no such author, publication,quote or evidence):Smith (2004) states, ‘There is now strong evidence that smoking cigarettes is linked tobaldness in young women’ (p. 32).ORSmoking has been linked to baldness in young women (Smith, 2004).ORSmith (2004) notes that the link between smoking and baldness in young women hassupporting evidence.Note that to ‘use’ published material can mean to quote, paraphrase, summarise,incorporate the ideas of or in any other way include in your work material that you didnot think of yourself. See the instructions later in this guide for more advice on howto correctly attribute the ideas or material in your assignments.10 ■ Avoiding Plagiarism and Cheating