2.2 Why do people plagiarise?
Sometimes, people might plagiarise without meaning to. This is called ‘unintentional plagiarism’. Other times, people choose to plagiarise even though they know it’s wrong. This is called ‘intentional plagiarism’.
Unintentional plagiarism
People might commit unintentional plagiarism because they don’t really know what plagiarism is, so they don’t realise they’re doing it. They might have:
- misunderstood what plagiarism is
- failed to include acknowledgements when making notes
- left out the acknowledgements in their assessment by mistake
- incorrectly referenced the material
- genuinely believed that the work they produced was original.
Intentional plagiarism
People often commit intentional plagiarism because they didn’t plan their time properly and left it too late to finish their work, so they choose to cheat and steal someone else’s work. Examples of intentional plagiarism may include:
- not properly acknowledging where the original words, ideas or data came from when quoting, paraphrasing or summarising words and ideas, or copying tables and graphs
- submitting a written or practical task that’s been completed for you in whole or in part by someone else – this includes generative AI
- copying or using another student's work and submitting it as your own
- submitting an assignment that’s been downloaded from the internet.
Important note: If your work is used by another student, both of you may be considered guilty of plagiarism.