How to avoid plagiarism while thesis writing.pptx

How to avoid plagiarism while thesis writing
Dr. Utpal Das, MSc., MLISc, M.Phil. Ph.D.
Librarian I/C &
University Coordinator for
Shodhganga and URKUND
Phone: 0373 2370230; 8486140679 (m)
e-mail: utpaldas@dibru.ac.in;
library@dibru.ac.in
www.dibru.ac.in/library

A paradigm shift of human values and qualities in the
21st Century due to digital dominance:
the massive ongoing explosion of information
the ever changing & newer digital technology & tools
impact of Social Media
growing impact of Internet & growth of e-resources
increasing complexity and volatility due cross
disciplinary research
increasingly questioning the value & quality of the
research & research output in universities &
publication field
transformation into a technology driven academic
society

Information Tsunami
• “More information is estimated to have been produced in the last 30 years
than in the previous 5,000”
• “As much new information will be available in the next decade would be
equivalent to what has been discovered in the whole human history.”
• “It is estimated that it would take seven centuries to read a year’s chemical
literature.”
• “There are 550 billion web-connected documents.”
• “Around 1,000 books (beside journals) are published internationally everyday”
• “If people could read 24 x 7x 365 days, will never be able to catch up with what
is already written.”
• “The total of all printed knowledge doubles every five years”

India’s position in original research
• 1980s : India was among the top 10 countries in the
world producing original research
• 1990s: India’s position 12
• 2000: India’s position below 20
utpaldas@dibru.ac.in 5
https://plagiarismcheckerx.com/global-plagiarism-live-stats

Country wise data on plagiarism provided by Global Plagiarism Live Statistics
(plagiarismcheckerx.com)
https://plagiarismcheckerx.com/global-plagiarism-live-stats

International Consortium of Investigative
Journals:
“India is one of the biggest global hub for
predatory publishing”

Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI),
Canada and the University of Ottawa scanned
1,907 papers from close to 200 predatory
journals, they found that 27% of the
corresponding authors came from India
followed by the United States (15%), and
Japan (4%).

Why do people plagiarize?
• Study Pressure,
• Disorganization,
• Poor Study habits,
• Cut-and-Paste culture,
• English as the international language
• Lack of understanding of seriousness of plagiarism.
• Lack of strict Academic Discipline
• Careless attitude
• Lack of referencing knowledge and skills

Why plagiarism is an act of fraud & stealing ?
Almost in all countries including India, the recorded
expression of original thought and ideas in any medium
is considered as intellectual property, and is legally
protected by copyright laws. The act of plagiarism is
violation of copyright laws as per the Copyright Act
1957 (Amended 2012)
11
utpaldas@dibru.ac.in

What are considered as plagiarism?
• projecting someone else’s work as his/her own
• copying from someone else work without
acknowledgment or credit
• not providing quotation marks in quotation
• providing false information about the source of a
quotation
• copying a sentence from a source while changing
the words/paraphrasing without giving credit
• copying a large amount of words or ideas from a
source that it makes up the majority of the
contender’s work, whether he or she give credit to
the source or not
12

Types of Plagiarism detected in research outputs?
The Oxford University website defines 8 forms of
plagiarism and other authorial misconduct
In 2015, iThenticate published results of a survey
on researcher behaviour and identified 10 types
of plagiarism and other attribution issues
13

1. Sources not cited during research writing:
a. Verbatim
b. Cutting & Pasting
c. Camouflage Paraphrasing (collage)
d. Disguise Paraphrasing (changes the appearance &
reproduces it)
e. Direct Paraphrasing (Writer Paraphrases from other
sources instead of doing original work
f. Auto Plagiarism (The writer borrows from his or her
previous work to a large extent losing
the originality of the current work)

II. Sources cited in research writing (but still plagiarized!)
a. Incomplete citation
b. Inaccurate citation
c. Pretentious citation (The writer copies and accurately
cites without putting quotation marks
and pretends that the copied block is
original presentation of his or her own)
d. Misleading citation (Author cites all sources, paraphrasing
and using quotations all appropriately,
but the paper contains no original work)
e. Partial citation (the author partially cites and quotes
some of the sources but intentionally
omit paraphrases of some other sources
without citation & pretends that the
paraphrased materials of non-cited
sources are of his or her own analysis)
15

Besides above, the following are also categorised as
plagiarism in research writing:
Failure to acknowledge assistance
Use of materials written by of professional
agencies
Repetitive research
Replication
Republication in translation without permission
& acknowledgement
Unethical collaboration

New opportunities for plagiarism and academic
misconduct in online learning environments
• Contract cheating: engaging a third party (for free, for pay, or
in-kind) to complete an essay assignment and representing
that work as their own. Often targeting vulnerable students
via social media.
• AI-based writing: using an AI-based tool to finish writing an
essay assignment.
• Text spinning or manipulation: taking content written by
another and running it through a software tool or
manipulating text with the intention of misleading plagiarism
detection software.

• Source code plagiarism: copying or adapting source code
without attribution to the original creator.
• Spyware: using technology like hidden earpieces,
smartphones, software that screen captures tests, and
online test banks to gain answers to exams.
• Using third parties for answers: using third party tutors to
provide answers or Bluetooth devices to communicate
answers on assessments.
• Impersonation: hiring someone else to take a test or the
entire course.
• Collusion: students working in groups on work intended for
individual assessment.
• https://www.marketwatch.com/press-release/plagiarism-checker-software-market-size-2022-global-business-trends-share-future-
demand-progress-insight-statistics-key-regions-prominent-players-and-forecast-to-2027-with-leading-regions-and-countries-data-
market-growth-reports-2022-03-08

7 important terminologies related to related to research
writing to avoid Plagiarism:
1. Attribution
2. Citation
3. Copyright
4. Quote/Quotation Mark
5. Public Domain
6. Fair Use
7. Common Knowledge
19

1. What is Attribution ?
Attribution is an act of providing acknowledgement and credit to
the source/creator from where/whom some ideas have been
borrowed. Best practice says that the statement should
include the title of the work, name of the creator,
For example:
1. Barrow, in his book "The Manufacture and Testing of Durable Book Papers,” demonstrated
that it was possible to treat newly manufactured papers with solutions of magnesium and
calcium bicarbonates, thus neutralizing acidity and prolonging the life of such papers
materially.
2. S. K. Bhuyan (1930) wrote, “…attached to the palace of the Ahom Kings there was a set of
apartments for the preservation of manuscripts…”
3. The International Committee on Archives (ICA) Committee on electronic records defined a
record as, "recorded information produced or received in the initiation, conduct or completion
of an institutional or individual activity and that comprises content, context and structure
sufficient to provide evidence of the activity“
4. Nielsen (2008) discusses the relationship between semiotics and information in relation to
dictionaries
20

2. What is Citation?
A “citation” is a piece of detail and complete
information which describes the source(s) from
where certain materials / ideas have been borrowed or
analysed. It must enable the readers to find out
the source(s) again. A citation includes:
• information about the author(s)
• the title of the work
• the name and location of the company
that published the copy of the source
• the date the copy was published
• the page numbers of the material that have
borrowed/analysed
21

Example of Citation:
1. Gelbrich, J., Mai, C., & Militz, H. (2008). Chemical changes in wood degraded by bacteria. International
Biodeterioration and Biodegradation, 61(1), 24-32.
2. Agrawal, O. P., & Barkeshi, M. (1997). Conservation of books, manuscripts and paper documents.
Lucknow, India: INTACH Indian Council of Conservation Institute.
3. Vigo, R. (2013). "Complexity over uncertainty in Generalized Representational Information Theory
(GRIT): A Structure-Sensitive General Theory of Information". Information. 4 (1): 1–
30. doi:10.3390/info4010001
4. David R. Anderson (1 November 2003). "Some background on why people in the empirical sciences
may want to better understand the information-theoretic methods" (PDF). Archived from the
original (PDF) on 23 July 2011. Retrieved 23 June 2010.
5. Burnham, K. P. & Anderson D. R. (2002) Model Selection and Multimodel Inference: A Practical
Information-Theoretic Approach, Second Edition (Springer Science, New York) ISBN 978-0-387-95364-
9.
6. Zhou, S., Xu, L., Colgan, P. M., Mickelson, D. M., Wang, X., Wang, J. & Zhong, W. (2007). Cosmogenic
10Be dating of Guxiang and Baiyu glaciations. Chinese Science Bulletin, 52(10), 1387-
1393. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-007-0208-y
7. Zou, D., Zhao, L., Sheng, Y., Chen, J., Hu, G., Wu, T.,…Cheng, G. (2017). A new map of permafrost
distribution on the Tibetan Plateau. The Cryosphere, 11(6), 2527-2542. doi:10.5194/tc-11-2527-2017
(There are many citation styles: APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian, IEEE, etc; author may choose any one style
according to the need and convenience)
22

When does a writer need to cite?
The following situations always require citation:
• Whenever a writer uses quotes
• Whenever a writer paraphrases
• Whenever a writer uses ideas that someone
else has already expressed
• Whenever a writer makes a specific reference
to the work of another
• Whenever someone else’s work has been
critical in developing writer’s own ideas
23

(i) Copyright and rights related to copyright
The Copyright Act of India was enacted in 1957 and
amended in 2012. With certain modifications, the
Copyright Rules, 2013 came into force from 14 March
2013 providing procedures to be adopted for the
execution of various provisions of the Copyright Act.

a) Copyright is the rights of authors of literary and artistic
works that protects their works for a minimum period
of 60 years after the death of the author (i.e. lifetime
of an author + 60 years)
Works covered under Copyright are:
-books and other writings,
-musical compositions, films,
-paintings, pictorial or graphic works,
-sculpture, architectural works,
- artistic craftsmanship,
- industrial drawing,
- computer programs, lectures

The categories mentioned in any copyright acts are
‘illustrative’ not ‘exclusive’ i.e.
i. The category of ‘literally works can range from novels
to computer programme’
ii. The category of ‘pictorial or graphic works can include
maps, charts, and other visual imagery’
Because of the vastness o the Copyright Acts of any
country, it is imperative to ask ‘what is not copyrightable’
rather than asking ‘what is copyrightable’

Characteristics of protectable works under
Copyright:
Originality
Creativity & Novelty
Fixed in a tangible medium
Expansibility of the form of work

Is copyright violation is legal offence?
Improper use of copyrighted material, such as, copying
without permission, alteration of the original text, not
providing acknowledgement or citation, substantial
similarity to the original, etc. are severe violation of
the Copyright Act and considered as legal offence
which may invite prosecution in the court of law.
28

Are all published works copyrighted?
Under the Copyright Act, 1957 (as amended in 2012),
“Copyright” subsists in all works that are not in the
public domain subject to certain exceptions as defined
in copyright law (Section 13 of “The Act”) that helps
identify which ‘expressions’ are copyrightable and which
are not copyrightable

Published works without copyright protection
• Ideas are not protected by copyright,
• Common facts (such as, there are 29 states & 7 union
territories in India, etc) are not protected by copyright,
• Facts that are result of original research of an individual
are also not protected by copyright,
• Compilations of readily available information, such as the
phone book, yearbook, atlas, etc., not copyrightable,
• Works published by the government,
• Once copyright has expired are not copyrightable,
• Works in the “public domain” are free from copyright.

Cases:
i. Whether discoveries are copyrightable?
ii. Whether published compilation are copyrightable?
iii. Whether published bibliographies are copyrightable?

Works outside the purview of Copyright
• Works that are not ‘fixed’ in a tangible form,
• Titles, names, phrases, familiar symbols or designs
mathematical & statistical equations, name of places, etc.
(some may come under Trademark law)
• Typographic variations, ornamentation, lettering or
colouring, mere listing of ingredients, as in recipes, or
contents.
• Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes,
concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices (some may
come under patent or trade secret law)
• Works consisting of information that is common property
and containing no original authorship. (e.g. calendars,
height & weight charts, tape measures & rulers, list or
tables of public documents, etc.

Cases:
i. Whether choreographic works, improvisational
speeches or performances that have not been
recorded or written are copyrightable?

Registration of copyright and © mark
Registration of copyright is not mandatory. Copyright
subsists with the author as soon as the work is created.
The © mark with the name of the author and the date
may be inserted in the form of a copyright notice in the
work though it is not mandatory as well.
Till 1989, the © symbol was used as trademark to
indicate that the materials are protected by copyright.
But as per international law that established in 1989
(Berne Convention), works are now copyright protected
with or without the inclusion of this symbol.

Formalities requires to make works copyrightable
• As per current international law, no formalities of notices
or registration is required for copyright protection
• Works published before 1978 were required to have a
copyright notice in order to gain protection
• As per current law, copyrights are bestowed for full term
automatically without registration, copyright notice and
renewal

4. USING QUOTE- HOW MUCH
A quote is a word, sentence, or sentences that a
writer copies exactly from a source
• You may use 3-4 words without citing a source. if you
use five or more words from a sentence, you should
quote and cite it.
• A quote is enclosed in quotation marks (for quotes
up to 39 words).
• For quotes of 40 or more words, it stands alone
without quotation marks and is indented five (5)
spaces from the left margin.

SINGLE VS DOUBLE QUOTATION MARKS
• You should use double quotation marks when you quote
material from a source. If you are also quoting passages
from that source that were quoted in the original
source, use single quotation marks to indicate that the
original source contained the quotation.
• http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup108986

5. What is Public Domain?
All works that are no longer protected by copyright,
or never under any copyright act, are considered as
“public domain.”
One may freely make use material from these works
without fear of plagiarism, provided he or she
provides proper attributions of it.
38

How do I know if something is public
domain or not?
In general, anything published more than 75
years ago is now in the public domain.
Works published after 1978 are protected for
the lifetime of the author plus 60 years.
39

6. What is “fair use”?
Fair use is a doctrine in the law of the United States that
permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to
first acquire permission from the copyright holder.
The “fair use policy” acts as guideline to decide whether the
use of a source is acceptable or contravene copyright laws.
Below some are viewpoints that determine the fairness of any
given usage
The nature of use
The amount used
The effect of used material on the original
40

The nature of use
If an author has merely copied something from
an original source, it is unlikely to be
considered ‘fair use’. But if the original source
has been transformed through interpretation,
analysis, modification, etc. and presented as
an original output, it is more likely to be
considered as ‘fair use.’
41

The amount used
If the amount of borrowing from an original
source is less then it is less likely it is to be
considered fair use. The more you borrow, the
more it is likely to be considered as fair use.
42

The effect of used material on the original
If an author has substantially borrowed from an
original source and created a work that competes
with the original source in the market which may
do the original author economic harm, is likely to
be considered fair use.
It is always better to have difference in objective of
the work or its target audience from that of the
original work to avoid possibilities of ‘fair use’.
43

7. WHAT IS “COMMON KNOWLEDGE”?
• A well-known fact
• Information that is likely to appear in numerous
sources and to be familiar to large numbers of
people
• This is the only time you do not need to cite
information, provided that you do not copy that
information word-for-word from a source
• If you are not sure if the information you want to use
meets these definitions, cite it
• If at least 10 peer-review papers in your discipline
don’t give a citation for the information, then you
don’t need to

EXAMPLES OF COMMON KNOWLEDGE
• Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4,
1968
• East Carolina University is located in Greenville, NC
and is part of the UNC system
• Smoking can cause respiratory diseases such as
emphysema and cancer

What may be Excluded from Plagiarism check?
The following may be excluded at the time of
performing the plagiarism check:
A. Quotes
B. Bibliography
C. Phrases
D. Small matches upto 14 words
E. Mathematical Formula/Scientific Laws
F. Name of Institutions, Departments etc.
G. Small similarity less than 1%
46

As Per UGC Regulation 2018, the similarity checks for
plagiarism shall exclude the following:
i. All quoted work reproduced with all necessary
permission and/or attribution.
ii. All references, bibliography, table of content, preface
and acknowledgements.
iii. All generic terms, laws, standard symbols and
standards equations.

The UGC Regulation 2018 also states that
• The research work carried out by the student, faculty,
researcher and staff shall be based on original ideas,
which shall include abstract, summary, hypothesis,
observations, results, conclusions and
recommendations only and shall not have any
similarities.
• It shall exclude a common knowledge or coincidental
terms, up to fourteen (14) consecutive words

Whether plagiarism invites penalty?
a. Penalties for independent researcher:
Violation of Copyright Act by independent
researcher or author through plagiarism is
considered as legal offence which may attract
prosecution in the court of law leading to several
kinds of penalties depending on the severity of
crime
49

b. Penalties for student/research scholar
An academic institute may consider following
penalties for student depending on the severity of
crime as it deems fit:
i. Written apology
ii. Rewriting or alternate piece of work
iii. Deduction of marks (Partial or Full)
iv. Imposing Fine
v. Restriction in publication of thesis or any chapter
as article
vi. Withdrawal of degree
vii. Rustication, temporarily or permanently for
further higher education
50

c. Penalties for academician
An academic institute may consider following penalties
for academician depending on the severity of crime as
it deems fit:
i. Disgrace to both Individual and institution
ii. May face disciplinary action as per institute rules
iii. It can cost a person his or her professional credibility
or even a job
iv. Debarment from eligibility to receive research funds
for grants and contracts from any government
agency in India
51

UGC Regulation 2018 defines
Levels of Plagiarism
Plagiarism would be quantified into following levels in
ascending order of severity for the purpose of its
definition:
i. Level 0: Similarities upto 10% - Minor similarities, no
penalty
ii. Level 1: Similarities above 10% to 40%
iii. Level 2: Similarities above 40% to 60%
iv. Level 3: Similarities above 60%

Acknowledgement
Thanks to the
authors of
various sources
from where
references have
been cited in this
presentation
In spite of all-
round efforts
to cite the
references,
any omission
is duly
regretted
This presentation is
only a part of
awareness
campaign by this
author against
plagiarism & its
growing menace in
the academic
research, so
suggestions are
welcome to make
this presentation
more effective
53

References
• http://www.turnitin.com/guidelines_staff_students_plagarism.pdf
• Zhang, Y.H. Helen (2016). Against Plagiarism: A Guide for Editors and Authors. Springer
pp.162 (Google Books – Copy)
• http://www.jnu.ac.in/Guidelines for Plagiarism Check Delhi University.pdf
• Guidelines to check Plagiarism by Jagnnaath University - Copy.pdf
• Plagiarism_Policy_Pune University_14-5-12.pdf
• http://www.ugc.ac.in/UGC Ph.D regulation on minimum standards and procedure for the
award of M.Phil. PhD Degree regulation 2009 And clarification on guidelines for admission
in M. Phil. Phd clarification.pdf
• Self-Plagiarism or Fair Use? Communication of the ACM August1994/Vol.37. No.8.pdf
• WWW.ITHENTICATE.COM/ 06122014ithenticate-pressure-to-publish.pdf
• WWW.ITHENTICATE.COM/ 06122014ithenticate-selfplagiarism.pdf
• Mater Sociomed. 2014 Apr; 26(2): 141-146/Plagiarism in Scientific Research and
Publications and How to Prevent It/DOI: 10.5455/msm.2014.26.141-146
• http://static.urkund.com/manuals/URKUND_Plagiarism_Handbook_EN.pdf
• http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/moredetails/UGC_Guidelines_for_Shodhganga.pdf.
• http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/faking-it-3/#sthash.8Frj7Upk.dpuf
• Shodhganga and Deterring Plagiarism in Research Outputs.pdf @ Manoj Kumar K.
• Researchgate.com
• Anti Plagiarism_PPT.pdf @ Suboohi Siddiqui
09-Aug-16 54

Thanks
55

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