CONTENT ETIQUETTE

PLAGIARISM is copying another person's work done as if he is the original owner without even paying or crediting the original owner.
It is the idea of reproducing another man's work, ideas to form his own as if he is the originator or the original of the work.

PLAGIARISM is the presentation of another man's work or opinion as his own without approval from the original writer.
It may be intentional or unintentional. In anyway it is a serious offence. The offence is as serious as piracy and it is punishable by court of law in Nigeria.

It is important for one to acknowledge the work or the ideas of other person's achievement and then seek his approval . This also apply to books published by an author or journalist. More also included in this group is a work downloaded from website.

A person can avoid plagiarism by his learning and employ what he learned from his career and put it into practice. To avoid plagiarism does not mean only to avoid duplication of other people's work but it is also about employing your academic skills to produce your own work as it is possible.
It is defined by University of Oxford as thus:

Plagiarism is presenting someone else's work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement.....

And Stanford defines it as the " use without giving reasonable and appropriate credit to or acknowledging the author or source of another"..... Therefore plagiarism could mean in a simple sense as the copying of other people's works or images or a person' s paraphrase the work of an author or publisher.

A part from plagiarise ones writeup , a person can also plagiarise image , data etc. It is therefore necessary for one to ask for permission to use one's work if permitted.

Source

Although plagiarism can be deliberately done by some persons but it can also be accidental. This can happen quickly in institutions as a person pen down his work and forgot to use a quotation marks or forgetting to refer to a work he read somewhere. This can be called accidental plagiarism.

As I stated above plagiarism is a crime punishable by a fine or jail term. According to a source :

The penalties for plagiarism can be severe, and it does not matter if the plagiarism was unintentional or not...... Plagiarism can also result in legal action being taken against the plagiarist resulting in fines as high as $50,000 and a jail sentence of up to one year.

So, different institution has various definition for plagiarism and the penalties attached to such offence.

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