Is plagiarism illegal and what are the consequences of failing in academic integrity?

Plagiarism is the term used to describe incidents where one person presents someone else’s work as their own. This can occur with or without the consent of the person who actually completed the work and with or without acknowledging the original author’s efforts.

Plagiarism is a widespread problem within schools and universities as well as in paid work and can lead to a host of problems. The following article explains the legal viewpoint of plagiarism, including when it can become a legal matter, who is affected by this behaviour, how plagiarism is detected and how different establishments will respond when they detect plagiarism.

How can I avoid plagiarism?

There are a number of ways in which you can avoid plagiarising the work of other people and your school or university should offer additional support to you from the beginning of your academic courses.

The best way to ensure that you do not plagiarised work is to learn and use good academic skills. Such skills will include:

• Referencing your sources and research thoroughly and clearly.
• Ensure that you have processed your research thoroughly enough to write your answers or essays in your own words.
• Be able to clearly define what is your work and where your ideas have come from the work of others.
• Completing online courses relating to plagiarism.
• Putting your essays through a site that specifically searches for online resources with the same words. This helps you ensure that you have thoroughly referenced direct quotes.

What will my university do if they find me guilty of plagiarism?

Universities take plagiarism very seriously as so many people suffer from this failure in academic integrity. Each university will investigate any cases of plagiarism and there are a number of penalties that a student may suffer if found guilty.

If a university deems that a student has plagiarised the work of another person, either knowingly or inadvertently, they might take action such as:

• Deduct marks from the essay concerned
• Exclude the student from future study with the university
• Demand that the student rewrite the essay concerned
• Present the student with a new assignment

How can plagiarism be unintentional?

Plagiarism means using someone else's work as your own and this can be done intentionally or unintentionally. Intentionally doing this would mean that you have knowingly submitted work in your name, even if all or part of the content was created by someone else.

Unintentional plagiarism occurs when you accidentally or unwittingly submit work that is partially made up of content from some else without correctly referencing this. You might do this by failing to add a reference, by genuinely believing that the idea or work was your own or through not understanding plagiarism rules.

Each case of plagiarism should be investigated on an individual basis, with intentional plagiarism facing harsher penalties that unintentional, in most cases.

Can plagiarism be a legal matter?

Plagiarism is not a criminal or a civil offence and as such, is not unlawful in itself. That said, plagiarism can infringe copyright laws or laws relating to intellectual property. This means that the law can become involved if the copyright owner highlights the plagiarism, particularly if they have suffered or loss or the plagiarism offender has made a financial gain because of the offence.