Plagiarism definitions and forms

La Trobe University policy states that:

"Plagiarism can be defined as reproducing someone else’s words, ideas or findings and presenting them as one’s own without proper acknowledgment."

Additionally, facilitating plagiarism or resubmitting one’s own work for credit are considered types of plagiarism:

"Assisting another person to plagiarise material may be punished as severely as is plagiarism itself.
Assisting plagiarism may involve for example, a student lending work, selling or advertising work for sale which is intended for submission for assessment, or which has already been submitted, so that it can be copied and/or handed in by another student as that student’s own work."

La Trobe University policy shows that plagiarism covers a number of activities. It states that:

There are many forms of plagiarism, including but not limited to the following:

direct copying of sentences, paragraphs or other extracts from someone else’s published work (including on the Internet and in software) without acknowledging the source;

paraphrasing someone else’s words without acknowledging the source;

using facts and information derived from a source without acknowledgement;

using ideas directly derived from an identifiable author without acknowledging the source;

producing assignments which should be the student’s own independent work in collaboration with and/or using the work of other people (e.g. a student or tutor).

(Academic Integrity Guidelines for Identifying and Avoiding Plagiarism, 2010, p. 1)

Sources that must be acknowledged are not limited to the printed word.
Policy states that students must “declare in their work submitted for assessment all printed, electronic, graphical, artistic work, and other kinds of sources from which they obtain materials or ideas”.
(Academic Integrity Procedures, 2010, p. 4)