Plagiarism? What plagiarism?

Many students ask this question: "how to avoid plagiarism?" When you submit an assignment report, it is checked by the education institution with an anti-plagiarism software such as turnitin (https://turnitin.com/static/index.php); if the similarity index measure produced by the software on your report reaches certain level, your report will be rejected. High similarity index value means high severity of plagiarism in this case. Here is an extract of a sample turnitin report:

(Extract - begin)

Turnitin原創性報告

Energy Saving of Daylight Integrated with Dimmer Light Control 經由 (Student name: XXXX)

從 XXXXx (xxx)

• 已處理到 xx-Dec-2011 9:26 PM PST
• 代碼: xxxxxxxxxxxxx
• 字數: 10719

相似度指標 (similarity index)

78%

依來源標示相似度

網際網路來源: (from Interner)

9%

出版物:  (from publications)

4%

學生文稿: (from student manuscripts)

73%

來源:

1

69% 相符 (matched) (student papers from 12/17/11)

Submitted to The Hong Kong XXXXXX on 2011-XXXX

 (Extract - end)


Many students start to develop writing skill to address this "similarity index" problem. They may also learn this kind of writing skill from some lecturers. From what I know, the trick to beat an anti-plagiarism software is as follows:

(i) Change the sentence structure of "your writings",
(ii) Replace some of the words with others of similar meanings,
(iii) Introduce some grammatical errors in your writings.

Here is an example for illustration:

Original sentence
Dr Ho teaches the subject of ecommerce.

Revised version 1
The subject of ecommerce is taught by Dr Ho.

Revised version 2
E-Business is taught by Dr Ho.

Revised version 3
E-Business is taught via Dr Hell.

You adopt version 3 when you are desperate to lower the similarity index value of your report further. Usually, you are not that worried about the grammatical errors in your report because there are already many of them in the essay reports anyway. You understand that report markers usually do not fail a student due to grammatical errors and that, after all, you only aim at a pass in your report work.

When I was a student, I did not have much worry of "accidental" commitment of  plagiarism in my work. The reason is simple: when I start to write an academic report, I do not look at the academic articles or textbooks that I have gone through. I do the writing and thinking at the same time. Of course, I do check my ideas with the original academic sources after I finish my writing to make sure that my understanding of these readings is appropriate. I also need to provide clear referencing and a reference list in my essay. Sometimes, I also find it useful to insert some quotations from the academic sources into my essay as evidences to support my expressed views  in my essay.



Besides turnitin, plagiarism can be checked using google scholar: http://scholar.google.com.hk/schhp?hl=en; one can copy and paste content to goole scholar to check if the content is plagiarised and from where.

If you are genuinely interested in your essay topic and have exerted serious effort to study and review the relevant academic readings, you will develop understanding and personal viewpoints on the topic. As a result, you should be able to write something about the topic area in your own words. In this case, you should not be worried about plagiarism in your own work.


Relevant readings

1. On harvard referencing: http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm
2. On plagiarism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism
3. On plagiarism: http://www4.caes.hku.hk/plagiarism/introduction.htm