Graduate Students' Guide to Library Resources and Services

The Oxford English Dictionary defines plagiarism as follows:

plagiarism, n.

1. The action or practice of taking someone else's work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one's own; literary theft.
2. A particular idea, piece of writing, design, etc., which has been plagiarized; an act or product of plagiary.

The UC Student Code of Conduct defines plagiarism as:

• submitting another’s published or unpublished work in whole, in part or in paraphrase, as one’s own without fully and properly crediting the author with footnotes, quotation marks, citations, or bibliographic references.
• submitting as one’s own original work, material obtained from an individual, agency, or the internet without reference to the person, agency or webpage as the source of the material.
• submitting as one’s own original work material that has been produced through unacknowledged collaboration with others without release in writing from collaborators
• submitting one’s own previously written or oral work without modification and instructor permission.

Learn more about plagiarism and its avoidance

In addition, plagiarism in the sciences is part of a broader definition of misconduct inresearch.The recognition of the larger framework into which the specific issue of plagiarism in the sciences fits can be seen in the National Science Foundation (NSF) definition of research misconduct as “fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.” Issues of citation when using other people’s work, however, apply in the sciences as in other fields of academic work.

(The content of this box is taken from Avoiding and Detecting Plagiarism: A Guide for Graduate Students and Faculty created at the Graduate Center, City University of New York).

Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool that is embedded within Canvas. By applying Turnitin to a Canvas assignment, you can check the originality of student work against the expansive Turnitin database. Turnitin can be used for both group and individual assignments and is a great way to prevent, as well as detect plagiarism within student writing. Turnitin can also be used as a formative tool to help students learn appropriate citation practices.

 As a student, you need to know how to submit a Turnitin-enabled assignment and how to access and understand the similarity report.

As an instructor, learn how to set up a Turnitin assignment and read an originality report.

Find a wealth of information in our Copyright FAQ Guide.

See Library Materials for Online Teaching for FAQ on copyright in online teaching.

As a teaching assistant, you need to educate your students about plagiarism and its consequences. Your students can learn about plagiarism and ways to avoid it by taking a module that concludes with a quiz.

Course version

If you wish to assign the plagiarism module to students who are enrolled in an existing Canvas course or organization which you administer, please follow the steps below.

• Login to Canvas.
• Click on the "Commons" link or icon on the left side of the screen.
• Click "Filter," scroll down to the bottom and  the click the button for University of Cincinnati.
• In the search box type "plagiarism." Click the link for "Plagiarism: Why Should It Matter to You."
• Once the module screen, click the "Import/Download" button on the right side.
• Choose the destination course for the module.
• Click "Import into Course."
• The module will appear under "Modules" in the course menu. The “For Instructors” page includes information about editing the module within your course.