You may have heard of plagiarism. It is a word that often fills students with terror! For those less familiar with it though, plagiarism is essentially a form of academic cheating where students take credit – deliberately or not - for an idea that is not theirs.

The best way to avoid plagiarism is to take good notes. Often, when we are reading it can be a very good idea to write down what we read in our own words to avoid plagiarism. It is very important that as you take these notes, even if you are paraphrasing them and aren’t writing down direct quotations, that you credit the person who had the idea to begin with (e.g., Carr (2019) states....).

Illustration of a head with a lightbulb inside it. A hand is reaching in to steal the lightbulb (idea)

Plagiarism will be covered in greater depth in the sections on academic writing and referencing, but for now remember this: when you are taking notes, you need to make sure that if the idea, piece of research, or opinion is someone else's, that you make a note of that. If you do this you should be safe from accidental plagiarism.

For more information on reading, note-taking and avoiding plagiarism, read the Effective Learning Service's guidance on active reading and the QMU Library guide pages on avoiding plagiarism.

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