What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the representation of another author’s language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one’s own original work. Plagiarism is considered a violation of academic integrity and a breach of journalistic ethics. It is subject to sanctions such as penalties, suspension, expulsion from institution or work, substantial fines and even imprisonment. Generally, plagiarism is not in itself a crime, but like counterfeiting fraud can be punished in a court for prejudices caused by copyright infringement, violation of moral rights, or torts. In academia and industry, it is a serious ethical offense.
If you use another person's work and do not attribute that work to the author, including copying text verbatim, paraphrasing a phrase or summarizing an idea, you are essentially committing plagiarism. Plagiarism usually occurs when a writer fails to:
cite quotes or ideas written by another author;
enclose direct text in quotes; or
put summaries and/or paraphrases in the his or her own words.
Plagiarism may be done deliberately or accidentally; either way, plagiarism is a serious offense. Committing plagiarism could be grounds for expelling a student from a university, terminating a professor's teaching contract, or suing an artist for monetary compensation.
cite quotes or ideas written by another author;
enclose direct text in quotes; or
put summaries and/or paraphrases in the his or her own words.
Plagiarism may be done deliberately or accidentally; either way, plagiarism is a serious offense. Committing plagiarism could be grounds for expelling a student from a university, terminating a professor's teaching contract, or suing an artist for monetary compensation.
Plagiarism has been a problem in schools and universities for years, but has become even more prevalent with the birth of the Internet. Search engines make it easy to find thousands of authors' works immediately, which can then be copied and pasted for a school paper, article, book, etc. Recently, 48 University of Virginia students quit or were expelled for plagiarism, and studies have shown that most college students know that plagiarism is wrong. Yet, students plagiarize anyway because they believe they will not get caught. Other students simply do not understand how to properly cite sources, resulting in many cases of accidental plagiarism.
Web sites today often provide complete essays on nearly any topic, making it easy for students to copy another person's work and pass it off as their own. Sometimes called "paper mills," some of these Web sites offer completed papers, while others allow students to trade their completed papers among one another.
Web sites today often provide complete essays on nearly any topic, making it easy for students to copy another person's work and pass it off as their own. Sometimes called "paper mills," some of these Web sites offer completed papers, while others allow students to trade their completed papers among one another.
Although plagiarism is not a criminal or civil offense, plagiarism is illegal if it infringes an author's intellectual property rights, including copyright or trademark. For example, the owner of a copyright can sue a plagiarizer in federal court for copyright violation. The plagiarist in turn may have to pay the copyright owner of the plagiarized works the amount he or she actually lost because of the infringement, in addition to paying attorney's fees.
Yet, plagiarism does occur and may likely continue to occur. Many famous icons have been proven to have plagiarized, either intentionally or accidentally. Helen Keller was accused of plagiarism during her school years, as was Martin Luther King, Jr., when a Boston University investigation revealed he had in fact plagiarized approximately one third of a chapter of his doctoral thesis.
Yet, plagiarism does occur and may likely continue to occur. Many famous icons have been proven to have plagiarized, either intentionally or accidentally. Helen Keller was accused of plagiarism during her school years, as was Martin Luther King, Jr., when a Boston University investigation revealed he had in fact plagiarized approximately one third of a chapter of his doctoral thesis.
Although proving plagiarism isn't always easy, there are electronic sources that can help combat plagiarism. Search engines on the Internet can be used to discover and fight plagiarism by allowing authors and professors the ability to search suspicious phrases or passages.
How it works?
iThenticate is the most trusted plagiarism checker by the world’s top researchers, publishers, and scholars.
Get comprehensive results
The reliable and easy to use Similarity Report highlights text sections to review and helps ensure the originality of your work.
View matches and sources
Highlighted matches and an intuitive panel for viewing source content makes it easy for researchers to review each match.
Identify critical issues
A variety of exclusion options help researchers quickly narrow in on the most important text matches to review.
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Academic articles, books, and conference proceedings from 47,000 scientific, technical, medical journals and 200,000 US law reviews
135 million
Open Access articles, books, conference proceedings, pre-prints, encyclopedias, and abstracts
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Current and archived web pages
Frequently Asked Questions
What does my similarity score mean? Your similarity score shows you what percentage of your text is found within sources in the comparison database. For example, if your score is 15%, then 15% of the content you wrote is unoriginal, as it matches text in the database.
When you use an idea, some words or a whole paragraph from someone else you must credit the original author. There are different ways to decrease Plagiarism on Turnitin
- Never copy from the source more than two words in a row.
- To decrease plagiarism, using citation will prevent you from getting copied text reports.
- Switch active voice to passive voice and vice versa.
- Use a plagiarism checker or paraphrasing service.
- Never copy from the source more than two words in a row.
- To decrease plagiarism, using citation will prevent you from getting copied text reports.
- Switch active voice to passive voice and vice versa.
- Use a plagiarism checker or paraphrasing service.
iThenticate identifies material that matches text from documents found in our extensive database. Highlighted text will include text that has been properly quoted and cited so it is not necessarily plagiarized. You will need to verify that every highlighted section has been properly quoted, summarized or paraphrased. As a result, iThenticate makes it easier for you to identify and attribute any material in that may contain unintentional plagiarism.
- Blue: No matching text
- Green: One word to 24% matching text
- Yellow: 25-49% matching text
- Orange: 50-74% matching text
- Red: 75-100% matching text
- Green: One word to 24% matching text
- Yellow: 25-49% matching text
- Orange: 50-74% matching text
- Red: 75-100% matching text
iThenticate has two primary benefits. First, authors can ensure they have sufficiently cited their sources and presented the highest quality written work. Second, this preliminary editorial review will allow editors to view and move submitted documents through the peer-review or referee process to publication, confident that content is original.
In addition to the Internet, uploaded files are compared to more than 40 million published research articles from 590+ global scientific, technical and medical publishers (this cache is larger than most university libraries maintain). This is a critical content component, and one not available in other services. iThenticate's comparison database includes more than one million abstracts and citations from PubMed, and more than 20,000 research titles from EBSCOhost and the Gale InfoTrac OneFile. iThenticate also maintains its own web crawler, indexing over 10 million web pages daily and totalling over 50 billion web pages.
Yes. Submissions are added to a private, secure database that is only accessible by your own account. Unlike many free plagiarism checker services, iThenticate does not share or resell uploaded files. Your submissions are not searchable by any other account, nor used by any other Turnitin service.
The consequences of plagiarism vary depending on the severity of the infraction. Some types of plagiarism, such as direct plagiarism, are more serious than others, such as self-plagiarism.
If you’re a student, then you might fail the course, be suspended or expelled, or be obligated to attend a workshop on plagiarism. It depends on whether it’s your first offense or whether you’ve done it before.
As an academic or professional, the consequences are more serious. Aside from the fact that plagiarizing seriously damages your reputation, you might also lose your research funding and/ or your job.
Plagiarizing is a serious offense, and knowing how to avoid plagiarism is therefore important. Read more about the consequences of plagiarism and use a plagiarism checker to detect plagiarism yourself.
If you’re a student, then you might fail the course, be suspended or expelled, or be obligated to attend a workshop on plagiarism. It depends on whether it’s your first offense or whether you’ve done it before.
As an academic or professional, the consequences are more serious. Aside from the fact that plagiarizing seriously damages your reputation, you might also lose your research funding and/ or your job.
Plagiarizing is a serious offense, and knowing how to avoid plagiarism is therefore important. Read more about the consequences of plagiarism and use a plagiarism checker to detect plagiarism yourself.
Plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s work or ideas without crediting the original author and thereby pretending it’s your own.
Paraphrasing means rephrasing the original text in your own words.
Paraphrasing means rephrasing the original text in your own words.
Paraphrasing without crediting the original author is considered plagiarism and therefore has serious consequences.
However, if you do credit the original author correctly using an in-text citation or footnote citation and include the full source in the reference list, then you do not commit plagiarism.
In order to avoid plagiarism, you must always cite the source in the correct citation format; otherwise, you are presenting something as your own work, even though it’s not.
However, if you do credit the original author correctly using an in-text citation or footnote citation and include the full source in the reference list, then you do not commit plagiarism.
In order to avoid plagiarism, you must always cite the source in the correct citation format; otherwise, you are presenting something as your own work, even though it’s not.
Although it sounds contradictory, you can indeed plagiarize yourself. This is called self-plagiarism. Self-plagiarism goes against the expectations of the reader that the paper you submitted is new.
You can plagiarize yourself by, for instance:
- Submitting a document you previously submitted for a different course
- Using a section of a previous paper without correctly citing yourself as the source
Although self-plagiarism is often unintentional, it can have serious consequences. Be sure to cite your previous work or discuss the decision to use your old paper with your professor.
You can plagiarize yourself by, for instance:
- Submitting a document you previously submitted for a different course
- Using a section of a previous paper without correctly citing yourself as the source
Although self-plagiarism is often unintentional, it can have serious consequences. Be sure to cite your previous work or discuss the decision to use your old paper with your professor.
If you correctly cite the source you do not commit plagiarism. However, the word ‘correct’ is vital in this sentence. In order to avoid plagiarism you must adhere to the guidelines of your citation style (e.g. APA citation style or MLA citation style).
Plagiarism checker software can be used to check your text for plagiarism. This software compares your text with billions of webpages, books and articles.
Plagiarism checker software can be used to check your text for plagiarism. This software compares your text with billions of webpages, books and articles.
