Avoiding Plagiarism: Tips and Techniques

This document provides tips and techniques for avoiding plagiarism. It emphasizes the importance of using proper referencing and citations to avoid unintentional plagiarism. The document also highlights the consequences of plagiarism in academic study and introduces the Harvard referencing system as an effective tool for avoiding plagiarism.

FACT
SHEETMaking use of someone else’s work without attributing that
person
Unintentional plagiarism of even a word or sentence might
lead to severe consequences
Plagiarism in academic study could lead to students failing the
course
Statistics
High School:
According to
plagiarism.org, 59%
high school students
commit plagiarism
34% committed
plagiarism multiple
times
College and Graduate
school (Plagiarism.org,
2019):
36% undergraduates
admitted to
plagiarising one or
two sentences from
the internet
24% self-reported
committing the same
mistake
38% students found
paraphrasing from
any written without
using footnotes
14% students
Avoiding Plagiarism
The most effective way to avoid plagiarism is to use proper
in-texting and references. Referencing any work means that
you are attributing the used information to the original
author. It means that you are not using some other’s work
and claiming it to be your own work. The Harvard
referencing system allows you to avoid plagiarism
effectively by using the proper references or bibliography
and in text citations.
References:
Using Harvard in-text citation is very easy. The things that one has
to remember are:
 The author’s or authors’ last name or an organization’s
name
 The year of the work published
 For example, Health is affected by the lifestyle choices
(Bowling 2014).
 Using direct quote – “Cross-sectional screening and case
finding surveys are conducted in relation to the detection
of individuals or populations at high risk of disease”
(Bowling 2014).
 Using citation before the sentence – Bowling (2014) is of
the view that lifestyle choices affect individual health.
Bowling, A., 2014. Research methods
in health: investigating health and
health services. McGraw-hill
education (UK).
Edelman, C.L., Mandle, C.L. and
Kudzma, E.C., 2017. Health
Promotion Throughout the Life
Span-E-Book. Elsevier Health
Sciences.
Plagiarism.org. (2019). Plagiarism:
Facts & Stats - Plagiarism.org.
[online] Available at:
https://www.plagiarism.org/article/
plagiarism-facts-and-stats [Accessed
6 May 2019].
PLAGIARISM
Using Harvard In-text Citations
 Using citation for three authors
– Smoking is not a lifestyle
choice for healthy living
(Edelman, Mandle and Kudzma
2014)
 For more than three authors –
(Edelmen et al. 2014)
Producing a reference list:
 Use the last name of the author
followed by initials of the first
name and then year of
publication
 This needs to be followed by
the title of the article in italics
and then the journal or book in
which the article has been
published
 Then add volume and issue
number in case of journal and
edition, name of the city,
publisher’s name in case of
book followed by the page
numbers used if specific
 In case of websites, give the
name of the organization or
agency or company then year,
the title of the page and then
the link