Plagiarism can be a confusing and overwhelming topic and is only one area of academic integrity. To learn more about plagiarism and how to avoid it, complete each of the steps below.
Step 1: Understand Plagiarism
Plagiarism is when you use another person’s words or ideas and try to pass them off as your own. However, plagiarism can take many different forms. To learn more about what plagiarism is, and why it’s wrong, view our short video on plagiarism. To learn about each of the types, use the Types of Plagiarism Infographic.
What about Generative AI?
Using generative AI may lead to several forms of plagiarism. Copying and pasting information from AI is a clear violation, but there are others as well. Including non-existing and unverified sources in a references list is known as falsification. Providing inaccurate or misleading information in your paper is known as misrepresentation. Both of these are academic integrity violations that can happen when attempting to gather information from generative AI without also going directly to the/a source to verify it.
There have been times when generative AI provides a reference citation to a “source” that does not exist at all or provides information from a source that is outdated and no longer accurate. This is just one reason to always go to any source that generative AI is providing. Check AI’s work yourself. You can only cite a source when you have located the information within that source yourself. And you should never cite AI as a research source.
If you include incorrect information provided by ChatGPT in an assignment, you will be responsible for it. See Academic Uses of AI.
Task: Complete the Types of Plagiarism Practice Activity:
Step 2: Properly Quote and Paraphrase
Using outside evidence is important in academic writing, but those sources must be used appropriately. You can include information from outside sources through proper paraphrasing and quoting. To learn about these two approaches, go to our short video on paraphrasing and our Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing page.
Task: Complete the Paraphrasing Practice Activity:
Step 3: Properly Cite Sources
As noted in Step 2, you can paraphrase and quote pieces of evidence to include information from outside sources. But all of that information must be cited within your paper using in-text citations and a separate references list. To learn about these two requirements, go to our Citing Within Your Paper page and our References List page.
What about information from Generative AI?
Do not cite AI as a research source. It is vital to know that AI does not always provide accurate information or even real sources. You must go to the original source to verify the source exists and is appropriate to use. Use that original source as your research source for your paper and always cite that original source.
Task: Complete the In-Text Citation Practice Activity:
Step 4: Check Your Work for Possible Plagiarism
It’s always a good idea to use a tool to check that you have properly used outside sources in your work. One tool you can use to help you with this is Turnitin.
- Turnitin is a tool that helps identify potential plagiarism within a submitted assignment. This tool compares students’ work with texts available online, in our university’s internal database, as well as any assignment submitted to Turnitin.
- You can submit your assignment to Turnitin before you submit it for grading so you can check your own work for possible plagiarism.
- For help understanding your Turnitin report, review our Understanding a Turnitin Report video.
For additional help, use our Did I Plagiarize? Infographic.
Step 5: Practice
Task: Complete the Is It Plagiarism? Practice Activity:
Copy and Paste, Find and Replace, Sharing Work, Collusion, Self-Plagiarism, Recycling, Purchasing, Remix, Ghost Citation, Plagarism