What is Plagiarism in Educational Context ?

The simple meaning of plagiarism is cheating, but if you check the real meaning of plagiarism in the dictionary then it will give somewhat like “the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own”.

Thus, Plagiarism is stealing or copying someone else’s intellectual work (can be an idea, literary work or academic work, etc.) and representation it as your own work without giving credit to the creator or without citing the source of information.

Following acts would be termed as Plagiarism :

• Using someone else’s (author or creator) work without giving credit to the author.
• Using someone else’s work in an inappropriate form than intended originally by the author/creator.
• Modifying/lifting someone’s production such as music-composition etc. without attributing it to the creator of the work.
• Giving incorrect information or incorrect source of information i.e., wrongful citation.
• Failure in giving credit or acknowledgment of the contribution of other in a collaborative effort, to which you are also part.

How not to Plagiarize?

Most of the Universities put in their student-handbook. 

To neglect plagiarism, one must give credit whenever you use:

• Idea, theory, or opinion of another person
• References to another person’s actual spoken or written words.
• Paragraphs of any author’s or creator’s spoken or written words.

Plagiarism is Offense :

• If plagiarism involves copying not only the ideas of an author but also a solid/basic portion of a copyrighted work without attribution and without taking the permissions from the author. It would amount to both copyrighted infringement and the violation of the special rights of the author to be credited.
  
• The copyrighted infringement and the breach of an author’s right to be concluded as both civil wrongs and criminal offenses. A civil suit may be instituted, and criminal charges may also be filed.
• Both civil suit and criminal charges are punishable offenses and amount to fines and penalties.