Copyright and Plagiarism
How to avoid Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the term for the act of using someone else's ideas or writing and not acknowledging them as the creator of the work.
Plagiarism is a form of theft because we give the impression that we created something ourselves, while it was actually created by someone else.
It is very easy to ‘copy and paste’ text from the Internet. It is only acceptable to do that in order to save information for later study and use. But pasting text straight into a project or assignment is dishonest and regarded as a criminal act!
We avoid plagiarism by:
1. Using quotation marks for direct quotes and giving the author’s name
2. Re-write all information in your own words, whatever the source.
Changing a few words in a sentence is not acceptable.
3. Acknowledge all sources in your bibliography.
Develop honest habits at school. At universities, assignments are checked by special software programs that will detect plagiarism. Some schools are already doing this too!
For more information:
Cyberbee (Excellent!)
How not to Plagiarise
Copyright
“Copyright is legal protection given to the authors or creators of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic and other intellectual works. What that means is that, as the author of the work, you alone have the right to do any of the following or to let others do any of the following:
- make copies of your work;
- distribute copies of your work;
- perform your work publicly (such as for plays, film, dances or music);
- display your work publicly (such as for artwork, or stills from audiovisual works, or any material used on the Internet or television); and
- make “derivative works” (including making modifications, adaptations or other new uses of a work, or translating the work to another media).
As the creator of your work, you should have the right to control what people can and cannot do with your work.”
Excerpt from: Copyright Kids—What is Copyright? Available: http://www.copyrightkids.org/
