Some students end up plagiarising for a wide variety of reasons – sometimes intentionally, but more often unintentionally. Irrespective of whether they meant to plagiarise or not, it is still a form of inappropriate academic practice and will therefore incur some level of penalty.
Early in your student career it is worth investing time in:
Once you have done this it’s unlikely you will plagiarise, intentionally or unintentionally.
Some of the more common reasons and ‘traps’ that cause students to plagiarise include:
Many students who plagiarise as a result of these and other reasons may not realise what they have done or the severity of their actions until either their tutor points it out to them or they lose marks as a result of inappropriate academic practices.
Less commonly, some students set out to deliberately deceive their tutor (and themselves) by obtaining work from other people or sources, and knowingly submit this as their own work. This is a clear case of cheating and constitutes fraud.
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