Tips to avoid accidental plagiarism

Released: Mar 2013
Features: 3:36 min, English subtitles

Review: Many students are worried about getting in trouble because of accidental plagiarism. This video shows five basic tips to avoid accidental plagiarism. It works with cartoons, visualization as well as oral explanations. Reasons are missing why plagiarism is a problem in learning and research as well as it is jeopardizing good scientific practice.

• Tip 1: Acknowledge the work of others used in your paper including ideas, methods, concepts and findings.
• Tip 2: Quotation marks can help you write properly when quoting from other sources. It ensures that the reader can distinguish your personal work.
• Tip 3: Paraphrase correctly, i.e. expresses the meaning of the original piece of writing in your own words.
• Tip 4: Take notes carefully at all times, i.e. make clear instantly what is a quotation and what are your own words. Use quotation marks und references.
• Tip 5: Acknowledge common scientific knowledge. Use references as far as possible.

Please mind that the video is produced by private for-profit company offering editing services. Still, its content and form are appropriate even though a scenario of “publishing” is not applicable for students.