Library Instruction

Tutorials

Plagiarism & Copyright

What is Plagiarism?

"Plagiarism is the act of stealing the ideas and/or the expression of another person and representing them as your own. Plagiarism is a form of cheating and no student shall, with intent to deceive, represent the work of another person as his or her own in any academic writing, essay, thesis, research report, project or assignment submitted in a course or program of study or represent as his or her own an entire essay or work of another. A student commits plagiarism if he submits work that is not truly the product of his own mind and skills."(Student Handbook 2010-2011. Plagiarism. p.46-48. AGUSTAR, 2010)

Forms of Plagiarism

“A word-by-word copying of someone else's work, in whole or in part, without acknowledgment, whether that work be an internet page, a magazine article, a portion of a book, a newspaper piece, another student's paper, or any other composition not your own”.

• “An unacknowledged paraphrasing of the structure and language of another person's work (changing a few words of another's composition, omitting a few sentences, or changing their order)”.
• “Writing a paper based solely on the ideas of another person. Even though the language is not the same, if the thinking is clearly not your own, then you have committed plagiarism”.

(Student Handbook 2010-2011. Plagiarism. p.46-48. AGUSTAR, 2010)

Turnitin

• Al Ghurair University uses Turnitin as a plagiarism-detection software.

• Students do not have direct access to Turnitin; Turnitin assignments must be created by faculty on the Turnitin website or within their Moodle courses.

• Students may see their own Turnitin reports only if faculty set the parameters to allow access.

• All electronically-submitted coursework is subject to review in Turnitin. 

Tips to remember

• Enclose all copied parts in “quotations” marks.

• Refer to the original source, either in the body of your paper or in a note.

• Make sure you are paraphrasing correctly, and not just rearranging words.

• Always give credit to the source.

• Double check your work.

Links to additional information on Plagiarism:

http://www.plagiarism.org/index.html  

Online resource for people concerned with the growing problem of internet plagiarism.

http://www.ncusd203.org/central/html/where/plagiarism_stoppers.html

Plagiarism Stoppers:  A Teacher's Guide Places to go for help with student plagiarism, how to identify it, what to do when it happens, how to prevent it. 

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/

Purdue University on Plagiarism (OWL – Online Writing Lab)

Information Literacy

Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to "recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information." (Association of College and Research Libraries, 2000).

We aim to provide our students with the skills to become life-long independent learners by introducing various modules throughout their first preparatory year at University.

The IL program has started in the academic year 2010-2011 as a pilot, with a plan to extend its coverage to the whole student body starting in 2011-2012 academic year.

Semester 1	Title
Module 1	Library orientation
Module 2	Evaluating results
Module 3	Understand ethics and responsible use (plagiarism)
Module 4	Citing sources and presenting results
Module 5	The library catalogue (Virtua)

Semester 2	Title
Module 1	Sources of information (electronic & print)
Module 2	EBSCO (orientation & search strategies)
Module 3	Bookfair visit (Dubai Bookfair, 15-20 March)
Module 4	Citing sources (refresher)
Module 5	Using LC (call numbers - refresher)
Module 6	The library catalogue (Millennium)

Please contact for additional information on IL and the modules offered.

Citing your References