Avoiding Plagiarism: Tips and Techniques

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/ar
ticle/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