Plagiarism: Home

What is Plagiarism? 

plagiarism, noun

the process or practice of using another person's ideas or work and pretending that it is your own.

Source:  Cambridge dictionary

Examples of Plagiarism

When you do not cite the source in your work, the following actions may constitute plagiarism:

• Any form of copying from websites, journals, books, articles
• Copying someone else's work.
• Any form of "copying & pasting" without citing.
• Rewording (paraphrasing) a source, or someone else's work, without citing it.
• Inadequate quotation marks around a direct quote.
• Concocting citations or providing incorrect references.
• Buying a work online and turning it in as your own.
• Using or cropping a photo, image, or artwork from the internet without attributing the source.

Please note that anything that is available on the Internet is not public domain or common knowledge. Books, articles, images, blogs, photographs, etc may be governed by copyright. Please visit the Creative Commons web page to know more about the terms of use.

•  About Creative Commons Licenses :
•  Creative Commons Search

Turnitin: Plagiarism Detection Service

IIMB subscribed to Turnitin plagiarism detection software and all your papers are scanned for originality. Please contact IT helpdesk for more information on this software

Tips to get organized in your research

Please keep print copies of the resources that you may retrieve while searching on the Internet or any other resource. You can also organize the electronic copies in the reference manager or any other tool. 

While taking notes from the sources you have gathered, ensure that you keep a complete list of bibliographic details that describe the resource. For electronic content, you may have to keep URLs, page numbers as these may be required when you cite the source.  

Please do not wait until the last minute or send us the topic seeking assistance in locating relevant resources. 

Help from our Library

• One Search Platform:  One search box in which you can perform a combined search of databases, electronic resources, the library catalog, etc. To access the platform effectively a help guide is designed to use the platform effectively.
• Library Catalog: To find books and other library materials (Help guide on OPAC)
• Indexes / Databases: search for articles (Help guide to locate an articles/Journals)
• Indexes / Databases by Subject
• Electronic Journals / ebooks / ebook chapter: find an online journal
• Borrowing: request materials directly from OPAC.
• Interlibrary Loan for request a book     & ILL for articles not owned by IIMB LIBRARY
•  
• Doing Research / Assignment / Project
• Glossary:  definitions of commonly used terms in the library
• Subject / Class Guides (LibGuides): find a guide to databases and journals by subject or topic
• Research Assistance get individual research assistance from our staff

Avoiding Plagiarism

IIMB library subscribes to the Indian edition of the course titled “Avoiding Plagiarism.”

This course helps you to understand: 

• How plagiarism is defined?
• How plagiarism occurs in different disciplinary contexts
• Importance of citation and references
• Referencing tools
• Strategies for avoiding plagiarism
• How to paraphrase, summarize and use quotes while using others’ work

The course comprises videos, transcripts of videos, self-tests , quizzes etc in order to progress from one module to the next module.  The duration of the course is one hour and at the end of all modules, a final test comprising questions randomly drawn from a question bank is to be taken. The pass percentage is 80 and you may take multiple attempts. Please note that your assignments will be not evaluated until you pass the course.

Why Give Attribution?

As you will be using several resources in your project or paper, you are expected to give attribution for many reasons such as:

• To express your perspective on published research by experts in that field.
• Giving attribution also is about acknowledging the contributions which might have helped you to shape your research topic and how your perspective either aligns or differs with the opinion of the experts. 
• The citation provided by you helps to locate those sources for evaluation of your project.
• It is also about being ethical and honest in your academic work.
• It fosters original thinking and writing.

Useful Tools 

Grammaly.com: It is a grammar-checking technological tool that reviews and improves text by correcting grammar, spelling, word choice and style errors with accuracy. It also detects plagiarism by checking texts against over 8 million web pages.

RefWorks: RefWorks is a web-based citation manager that helps you keep track of your research, organize, store citations, and create bibliographies. It is easy to collect or import materials from the open web, Google, major database platforms, and directly from your PDFs or Office documents.

Typeset: Typeset is publishing tools & the main features are as follows: • Auto-format with 100% compliance to any journal's guidelines in seconds; • Choose from over 45,000+ verified Scopus indexed journal formats like Elsevier, Springer, and IEEE, etc.; • Integrated plagiarism check for your research; • Integrated spelling and grammar check; • Cite and order in one-click with any citation style; • Collaborate seamlessly with any number of peers; • Export to MS-Word, LaTeX or PDF.

APA citation guide: APA Style Guide to Electronic Resources 6th edition is available in PDF format. Please contact the librarian for more information.

Common Knowledge

Attribution is not required when it is known as common knowledge in that domain and for your own opinion and ideas. However, ideas and interpretations cannot be construed as common knowledge. In case of any doubt, whether a fact or an idea is common knowledge in your discipline, it is always recommended that you cite the source.

Some examples:

• • • Paris is capital of France
    • Molecular structure of carbon dioxide is CO2