What is plagiarism

Plagiarism is “substantially copying other people’s works, taking them for their own” [“copiar en lo sustancial obras ajenas, dándolas por propias” (RAE)]. In academic writing, plagiarism is the inclusion of ideas, paragraphs or phrases of another author without indicating the source, whether it is printed or electronic, published or unpublished.

When starting a research work, it will be necessary to rely on other authors and publications, that is, on the work of others. It is necessary that this support material is correctly referenced, indicating at all times the source from which the information has been extracted.

Legislative Royal Decree 1/1996, of April 12, which approves the revised text of the Intellectual Property Law, regularizing, clarifying and harmonizing the current legal provisions on the matter.

Chapter II, Article 32. Quotes and reviews and illustration for educational or scientific research purposes.

1. The inclusion in an own work of fragments of others of a written, sound or audiovisual nature, as well as isolated works of a figurative plastic or photographic nature, is legal, provided that they are works already disclosed and their inclusion is carried out at citation title or for your analysis, comment or critical judgment. Such use may only be made for teaching or research purposes, to the extent justified by the purpose of such incorporation and indicating the source and name of the author of the work used.

https://www.boe.es/buscar/pdf/1996/BOE-A-1996-8930-consolidado.pdf

Quote to avoid plagiarism

Express your own ideas, these should be the focus of the work.

Include the ideas of other authors sparingly, and as long as they serve to support your own reasoning.

 You can rely on the bibliography reflecting it in your work in two ways:

1. Taking verbatim the words of the author. In this case, in addition to citing the source, it will be necessary to use quotation marks to mark the text that has been used. It is recommended that the verbatim citations be short.

2. Use the author’s idea that you rely on but paraphrasing, that is, putting them in your own words once you have understood what he is saying and that you have synthesized the idea to support your own work or your own reasoning. As in the previous case, it is necessary to cite the source you are using. It is also important not to modify the meaning of the text.

3. In the case of it being “public knowledge” the appointment is not necessary. Public knowledge corresponds to the facts or ideas that are known to the community and that belong to it. Eg it would not be necessary to quote if we say in our work “Colon discovered America”.

Helpful tips to avoid plagiarism

Whenever you use a bibliography, make a note of the reference so you don’t forget to cite it. It is important to take the data from the bibliography used. Cite everything you use for work.

Review (verify) the bibliography that is used as it is read, identifying the author, title, place of publication and date. In case of online consultation, the consultation date must be noted.

Cite your sources correctly. Whether you copy verbatim or paraphrase a text, be sure to indicate this in your notes and from the beginning add the quote.

Remember that citations give credibility to your work, by providing information about the sources you have used. It will allow the reader to verify the veracity of your ideas.

Citation styles and bibliographic references

The University of Cádiz makes the Mendeley Reference Manager available to its users. This program will help you to manage the sources and keep track of the references that you are using at work. The manager also allows you to include citations in the text and prepare the final bibliography, in the style that interests you most.

Here are some citation formats.

• Vancouver style    Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts  Vancouver Style in Fisterra.com
• APA Citing with APA tutorial
• Harvard Guide to the Harvard System of Referencing (6ª ed.) from the Anglia Ruskin University Library(Reino Unido)

Tutorial “How to cite and elaborate bibliografic references” (Spanish)

Programas para detectar el plagio

There are computer programs that compare texts and allow to recognize if a work has similarities with others published, and therefore to recognize if a document has been plagiarized.

Anti-plagiarism softwares are programs that compare texts and allow us to recognize if a work has similarities with other published ones. They are used to detect if a document has been copied. The University of Cádiz has incorporated Compilatio, a tool that analyzes files uploaded by students in forums, assignments or workshops and generates a report on the similarities detected on the Internet, scientific journals and in its own database. The use of this software should not be viewed simply as a dissuasive tool, but as an opportunity to motivate the improvement of student work. The reports generated by this application can contribute very positively to the teacher-student interaction, with feedback comments that facilitate the appropriate use of external sources, prevent incidents in the preparation of future academic or professional work and in any case, contribute to the increase of its quality.

This software assists the teacher and facilitates his work, but does not relieve him of the last responsibility to discriminate between activities that could be classified as plagiarism, from those that represent a legitimate use of external sources.

The application is already accessible on the Virtual Campus. To find out how it works, access the explanatory video (Spanish)  prepared by the Virtual Campus service in collaboration with the Digital Resource Center.