How to avoid plagiarism
The internet
Can I use information from the Internet?
Yes, you can. But there’s so much stuff on the Internet, you need to be careful to choose information that is reliable, accurate and suitable for use in academic writing.
How do I know if what I find is ‘reliable, accurate and suitable’?
Here are a couple of online tutorials to help you find reliable, accurate and suitable material from the web. Do one of these!
- Catalyst: Evaluating Information - From the University of Technology Sydney.
- Evaluating Websites - From the University of Wollongong.
Do I need to reference material from the web?
Yes.
How do I do that?
It’s similar to how you do it for any other publication. Most of the current style guides have large sections which describe how to reference electronic resources.
As we said in the Referencing section, download and print out one of these and keep it on your desk. Follow it carefully.
HINT: Just putting a URL (web address) in the body of your essay is, in most cases, not enough. You need to find more information about the person or organisation who published the website. Remember to put all the necessary information in your reference list too. Your lecturer needs to be able to find this online material to check you've quoted it accurately.
NOTE: The Internet is one of the reasons we're hearing so much about plagiarism in universities at the moment. This is because it is so easy to do a quick “google” (search) for information and to copy this information directly into assignments. Even worse, it is easy to find whole assignments on your topic on the Internet.
Just as you can find answers on the Internet, lecturers can easily see when information has been copied from the Internet (see the Text matching software page). So, as tempting as it might be, don’t cut and paste large chunks of information – read and understand the ideas and, if relevant, paraphrase them, and make sure you reference them properly.
As for copying whole assignments, that is just plain cheating. The University’s Penalties for Academic Misconduct outline what happens if you get caught doing that. It’s not worth it!!
To sum up:
When using information from the Internet, make sure:
- the information is from a suitable source
- you reference it according to an accepted style guide
- you don’t just cut and paste large chunks. Your lecturers can use programs to check if you have cut and pasted text from the Internet.
