Four Tips to Prevent Plagiarism

Did you know February 19 is Prevent Plagiarism Day?

According to the University’s Academic Honesty Policy, “plagiarism is the act of copying the ideas, and/or speculations, and/or language of any other person or persons, without acknowledgment, and presenting this material as your own original work to satisfy any academic requirement or complete any academic project. This includes any use of artificial intelligence (AI), including but not limited to ChatGPT. Plagiarism takes place even in the event that you make use of or paraphrase another person’s unique and distinctive terminology, whether it be a single word or phrase or extended passage, without acknowledgment.”

Here are four tips to prevent plagiarism when writing your assignments:

1. Take detailed notes and practice citing your information from your sources prior to beginning your paper.
2. Paraphrasing is not simply changing a few words or using synonyms. It is putting material into your own words and citing that information.
3. Anything that is not your idea, word or phrase, image, chart, etc. needs to be cited using the appropriate citation manual according to your assignment.
4. Run your assignment through a plagiarism checker to be sure you aren’t accidentally plagiarizing.

Questions? Reference@desales.edu