Lesson 4a: Types of Plagiarism

 

In order to avoid plagiarizing, it is best to fully understand the different ways in which plagiarism can occur.

Direct Plagiarism

Direct plagiarism occurs when a student copies sentences or paragraphs that someone else wrote and uses them without quotation marks or without citing the source. Directly plagiarizing could mean copying and pasting from an article on the internet, from a book or magazine, or even from a friend or classmate.

Mosaic Plagiarism

Mosaic plagiarism is also sometimes called “patch-work plagiarism”. It occurs when a student borrows phrases from a source or pieces together information from different sources without using quotation marks. It also occurs when a student finds synonyms for the author’s language but keeps the same general structure and meaning of the original.

Self-Plagiarism

This may sound strange, but it is also possible to plagiarize yourself. If you submit a paper that you wrote for another class, you are committing self-plagiarism. To avoid this, just make sure that you always write original work for your assignments, and that you don’t recycle previous work that you’ve already written.

Accidental Plagiarism

Many instances of plagiarism are those in which the student does not mean to do anything dishonest. If you do not keep track of the resources you use while researching, you might forget to cite those references when you write your paper. While this may be an accident, it is still plagiarism, and you could still face strict consequences for forgetting to cite sources.

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