What is plagiarism?
The word “plagiarise” comes from the Latin word plagium which means “the act of kidnapping”. Kidnapping is “snatching” or “taking furtively and illicitly that which is not your own”.
Applied to intellectual property, it is the appropriation of another’s work without proper acknowledgement.
Plagiarism Definition: is the act of taking words, ideas and thoughts of others and passing them off as your own. It is dishonest and punishable to represent as your own ideas, words and academic work that belong to another person, whether unintentionally or deliberately.
Consequences: serious academic offence that can lead to the rejection of your dissertation or research project.
VUT PLAGIARISM POLICY
Students are reminded that they must give credit to the sources they use. The following are regarded as plagiarism:
Copying words or ideas without giving credit.
Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks.
Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation.
Turning in someone else’s work as your own.
It involves stealing someone else’s work and lying about it afterwards.
Copyright Act No. 98 of 1978, governs copyright in South African and it aims to protect the rights of authors, producers and creators regarding their original works (i.e. literary, musical and artistic works, cinematograph films, sound recordings, published editions and computer software). Copyright provides an incentive for creativity and a means of financial compensation for authors and creators of intellectual property.
All use of copyright material is governed by the principle of ‘Fair Dealing’ in Section 12(1) of the SA Copyright Act. Under the provisions of the Act, libraries and archive depots are authorized to supply photocopiers or other reproductions. One of the provisions is that the photocopy or reproductions is not used for any purposes other than private study or personal or private use.
