When writing academic papers, it is common to draw inspiration from other authors in order to create your text. Students are expected to communicate their thoughts and reflect on the work of other scholars in the field. It is okay to borrow ideas from others. Plagiarizing is a crime. Plagiarism, which is also a violation copyright, is considered a crime. But where is the line?  Plagiarism happens when someone rewrites phrases, quotes, or concepts from other authors, whether from books or the internet, without giving due credit. It is important to make any reference explicit in the work. Carlos Alberto Decotelli (the then Minister of Education) resigned from the portfolio in June after he was accused by his master’s thesis of plagiarism of plagiarising.

Plagiarism is unfortunately a very common problem in academia. However, it is often difficult to understand what plagiarism means in practice. We will explain the most common forms of plagiarism as well as how to avoid them. Note: Using the paraphrase tool to do the job would also help you in this field.

Integral

This is the most obvious and well-known to students. This is the act of copying word for word a sentence, paragraph or entire work without citing the source.

Partial:

Plagiarism is when a text contains multiple excerpts or concepts from other works and becomes a single text. The idea of plagiarism doesn’t differ based on whether the student copied the main idea, or the conclusion of another piece. Plagiarism is simply the combination of multiple ideas or paragraphs without mentioning the original authors. Plagiarism can also occur even if the excerpts are added word for word or changed some terms.

Because academic work requires that the student create a new text, with his ideas and views, based on other researchers’ concepts. It does not simply combine ideas from different authors. You can respect copyright by explaining concepts from other authors using your own words, or what you have learned from the idea. You can also add additional complements to the original work that directly link to its themes.

Conceptual:

It refers to plagiarism of another author’s idea, as the name implies. You may find that you are able to create a concept from research that helps explain a phenomenon. You may even borrow concepts from other authors and use them as nomenclatures. It will be considered “conceptual plagiarising” if you refer to a concept that was created by another person without citing the source.

How to avoid academic plagiarising

It is best to identify the source of the original ideas as soon as possible to prevent plagiarism. In general, all citations should include the following information: the name of the author (commonly identified with the last name), the year of publication, and the page number in which the idea was found. You can see below two types of quotes suggested by the ABNT.

Get a direct quote

The direct quote is required if you are going to faithfully transcribe an excerpt. These two forms are very similar, but they must both be marked with quotation marks and include the information about the work.

This is the only quote:

This format allows you to insert the author’s quotation and then add three pieces of information about your work in parentheses at the end of each quote. Make sure to put the author’s name in capital letters. . Instead, it establishes in politicians the terms by which identity is constructed” (BUTLER 1990, p. 213).

Citation in paragraph:

Your text will include the quote as a paragraph. The author’s last name must always be written in normal English (with the first letter capitalized, and the next lower case), followed by the year and reference page in brackets. .

Citations that have more than three lines

You will need to reduce your font size to 10 and indent the 4 cm margin if you are using a quote that takes up more than 3 lines of text. This will make the text stand out from the rest and emphasize that it is a quote by another author. It is not necessary to include quotation marks in this case.

Indirect Quotation

Paraphrasing the author is a way to use different words than the author. You can also use an indirect quote. This allows you to use your own words and explanations of what the author said. It is not necessary to mention the book page in this instance. When mentioning the surname or author of the reference, it is important to follow the guidelines of the direct quotation. These are just two examples:

Example 1: According Butler (1990, p 213) the deconstruction and reinterpretation of identity is what leads to the creation of a “gender”, as a politician.

Example 2: Deconstruction of identity leads to creation of a “gender”, as a politician (BUTLER 1990).