VRKM – What does citation have to do with plagiarism?

The practise of taking the words, ideas, or facts of another person and passing them off as one’s own is known as plagiarism. Although many people who plagiarise do so on purpose, it is also possible to do so unintentionally by failing to properly cite sources used in one’s work.

The reason for this resides in the expectations that your audience, which in this case consists of your professors, have for the work that you turn in.

When you hand in a piece of work that bears your name, it is expected of you that you are submitting work that you have done on your own initiative and responsibility. When you sign your name to an assignment, it indicates, at the very least, that the work that is included inside it belongs to you, unless it is specifically specified differently.

Because of this, if you use the work of other people, it is imperative that you cite that information in a way that is both obvious and accurate to signal that it is not your own work. Citations are another way to demonstrate that you have performed the required amount of research and that you have checked the suitable texts for your project.

In essence, failing to cite means that you are asserting that the entire document as well as all of the information contained within it is your own, which, if it is not the case, constitutes plagiarism.

Things get more confusing when an individual makes an attempt to cite the work but does it in an inappropriate manner. This can involve anything from employing the incorrect citation style (for example, using MLA when APA should have been used, or vice versa) to footnoting a section that was taken verbatim from another source but not quoting it.

In such instances, a great deal depends on the particular conditions. An instructor may reduce a student’s score for just using the incorrect citation style; nevertheless, they would not consider this to be plagiarism because the source was properly credited; it was simply done in the incorrect manner for the assignment.

Plagiarism can still be regarded to have occurred, even if the citation is neither accurate nor comprehensive, in some circumstances. If you utilise a piece but don’t quote it, for instance, it doesn’t matter if you acknowledge the source because the only thing you provided credit for was the information and not the words themselves.

Nevertheless, teachers approach these kinds of situations in a variety of ways, and they might be more forgiving if there is a demonstrable effort made to avoid plagiarising someone else’s work. In circumstances like these, rather than treating them as disciplinary issues, people tend to view them as flaws with the assignment.

Your teachers are the ones who will make such decisions. Even if you had no intention of plagiarising, your instructor and/or school has the right to chose to take severe action against you because plagiarism is sometimes regarded as an offence in which the accused person’s motivation is irrelevant.

The greatest thing you can do if you are unclear about whether or not you are properly crediting your sources is to discuss with your instructor and show them what you are doing. If you collaborate with your instructor, you may both guarantee that you fulfil their standards of citation and let them know about the issues that you are having trouble with.

That can go a long way towards preventing an accusation of plagiarism before it ever begins and can be of great assistance in improving the grades you receive when the assignment is handed back to you.