Common mistakes

There are many reasons why acts of plagiarism occur, some of which are due to genuine mistakes that relate to referencing and note-taking practices. Some students make the mistake of thinking that plagiarism does not apply to every type of source material or to every type of assignment, but it does. Unfortunately, no allowance is made for whether the act was intended or unintended, as we saw from the University definition of plagiarism

• "I thought it would be OK if I only included the source in my bibliography."
• "I made lots of notes for my essay and couldn't remember where I found the information."
• "I am familiar with other academic conventions"
• "I thought it would be OK to use material that I had purchased online."
• "I thought it would be OK to copy the text if I changed some of the words into my own."
• "I thought that plagiarism only applied to essays, I didn't know that it also applies to oral presentations/group projects, etc."
• "I didn't think I had to reference my tutor's notes."
• "I didn't think that you needed to reference material found on the web."
• "I left it too late and just didn't have time to reference my sources."