Plagiarism | Tārua Whānako

To understand what plagiarism is and why it's a problem.

Kupu matua - Keywords

plagiarism, copy-paste, citation, original, intellectual property

What do each of these words mean?

Plagiarism

Taking someone else’s work and pretending it’s yours

Copy-paste

Using someone’s words or work exactly without changing or credit

Citation

A way to give credit to the original author or source

Original

Your own ideas or work, not copied

Intellectual Property

Ideas or creations that belong to someone (like art or writing)

Just changing a few words or swapping synonyms is still plagiarism if the structure and meaning of the sentence are basically the same.

True paraphrasing means fully rewriting the idea in your own words and style, while still keeping the original meaning.

Summarising means shrinking a longer piece down to the main idea — also in your own words.

When you paraphrase or summarise, you must cite the source you are using. You cannot claim it as your own idea if it is not.

Why is it unfair to use someone else's ideas without saying where they came from?

🕵️‍♂️ Spot the Plagiarism

In this task you need to decide which text is plagiarised and which is a students own work.

According to [source], ...
According to National Geographic, deforestation affects weather patterns.
In a report by [source], it says...
In a report by the Department of Conservation, it says that 90% of seabirds are affected by plastic.
[Source] explains that...
WWF explains that turtles often mistake plastic for food.
[Source] states that...
The Ministry of Health states that vaping has increased among teens.
As written on/in [source], ...
As written on Britannica Kids, earthquakes happen when tectonic plates move.
It was reported by [source] that...
It was reported by One News that flooding in Auckland caused major damage.