Plagiarism

[MuggedByReality]

    What exactly constitutes plagiarism? How rare does the group of words one uses have to be, for one to be guilty?
     And are the rules the same for academic discourse, literature and print journalism?

[Russ]

Unauthorised and unacknowledged use of somebody else's work (but seriously, if you have to ask then you're probably guilty)

I don't think the rarity of the words matters, just the overall percentage similarity

[mikee65]

Unauthorised and unacknowledged use of somebody else's work (but seriously, if you have to ask then you're probably guilty)

I don't think the rarity of the words matters, just the overall percentage similarity

Mmm has there ever been a coincidence? whats the % threshold?

[Chavi]

Unauthorised and unacknowledged use of somebody else's work (but seriously, if you have to ask then you're probably guilty)

I don't think the rarity of the words matters, just the overall percentage similarity

Mmm has there ever been a coincidence? whats the % threshold?

51%

This is what your teachers use:
http://www.articlechecker.com/

[Russ]

haha 51% is way too high. It varies from department to department but dad says that he stipulates 20%

and this is what will be used:
http://turnitin.com

[Eriny]

It's possible to plagiarise accidentally by using someone else's idea without realising that it was from them, it happens all the time in music for instance. I would draw an important distinction between knowing you've stolen somebody's work, which you really need to credit somewhere and not knowing which is perfectly understandable. That's the same both for academic work and journalism, the difference between them is the way you'd reference where your thoughts/ideas/quotations are from.

[ninwa]

@Russ, how much does your dad rely on Turnitin? It can be really annoying and pick up common phrases like "reasonable foreseeability", and on the other hand does not check whether *ideas* have been copieđ. And 20% wow that's high, for a law assignment the threshold was I think 10%? And for a French one someone got failed for one phrase being a direct copy off the internet (lol)

[Russ]

Apparently he's got it set to show the percentage to the students when they submit it and they know that they're not allowed to submit anything over the cutoff (which varies). After that if it seems to still be copied he'll check it out further himself I guess. So he uses it as a filter mostly.

[MuggedByReality]

Apparently he's got it set to show the percentage to the students when they submit it and they know that they're not allowed to submit anything over the cutoff (which varies). After that if it seems to still be copied he'll check it out further himself I guess. So he uses it as a filter mostly.

What/Where does he teach?

[stonecold]

What if you do your assignments by hand?

[Chavi]

What if you do your assignments by hand?

scan with word convert

[stonecold]

What if you do your assignments by hand?

scan with word convert

May just have to start using cursive then. 

Nah, plagiarism is lame.  I hate it when people copy the work of others.

[TrueLight]

^ oh dont worry you wouldn't want to at uni

[Glockmeister]

^ oh dont worry you wouldn't want to at uni

If you do it, it might be something you'll regret later down the track, to the point that it might be a career-limiting move.

Just ask a previous Monash University Vice-Chancellor.

[stonecold]

^ oh dont worry you wouldn't want to at uni

If you do it, it might be something you'll regret later down the track, to the point that it might be a career-limiting move.

Just ask a previous Monash University Vice-Chancellor.

I think our coordinator told us about this last year.

He copied like only a bit and didn't reference it in a speech or something?

Then he got found out and hasn't had a decent job since.  Big fall from grace?