How to avoid accidental plagiarism

‘Plagiarism is…the unacknowledged use of someone's work’ and can have serious consequences to your academic studies (Pears and Shields, 2022).

Unfortunately, plagiarism can accidently happen to us all if we poorly acknowledge sources, inadvertently quote another person’s work, or even just take poor quality notes.

This guide and workshop will

• Point out some of the blunders to avoid
• Help you understand the importance of good referencing, paraphrasing and summarising
• Provide note-taking tips. 

This guide is not subject specific but will give general advice that applies across subject areas, although presentation will employ the Harvard referencing system to explain referencing techniques. If you're not sure what style of referencing you use, refer to your Subject Guide or ask your School. 

Upcoming sessions:

You do not have to book onto the workshop as attendance is on a first come first served basis.

• 14:00-15:00, Wednesday 13 August 2025 (online via Teams): Link to join

You do not have to book onto the workshop as attendance is on a first come first served basis

If you need further information or any adjustments to fully access our sessions, please contact libraryhelp@tees.ac.uk in advance. 

Previously recorded session:

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Point to think about - always bear this in mind when you write. 

If a sentence does not have a reference, the reader assumes that all the work here including ideas, theories, evidence, argument etc...is yours and yours alone. If you paraphrase, summarise or copy a source but don't reference, you are plagiarising.

So how can we avoid this?

• Take careful notes. This is a very important aspect of studying at University and is often an underestimated skill - see below and our note-making guide.
• Acknowledge all sources of information. This includes statistics or figures, any images/graphs/tables, ideas or theories or arguments, and cite these correctly using the reference style for your subject. 
• Using ‘quotation marks’ when directly stating another person’s words, but try to limit the number of quotes you include.
• When you write, try to paraphrase or summarise (using your own words) to explain the ideas of others. It's better to use your own words as your assignment will flow better, you may be able to explain concepts more clearly and it shows that you understand what is being written by others.  
• Never copy and paste text even if referenced. You may forget to include quotation marks and hidden script can be embedded within text
• Don't submit same work for different assessments - this is self plagiarism. 
• Use Turnitin and check your work for plagiarism before submitting - access via eLearning@Tees Tips for using Turnitin can be found using the UNIverse self-service portal. 

Good note-making techniques include the following:

• Include the full reference of the source so that you can find the source including page numbers, date of lecture, authors, years, URLs etc for references.
• Use abbreviations, but ensure you remember what they mean when you go back to your notes.
• Explain points so they’ll make sense later.
• It's really important to distinguish quotations/paraphrases/something in-between.
• Read, then make notes, try not to make lots of copied content as this is where plagiarism can slip in.
• When reading, make connections between text and other reading.

What not to do when making notes:

• Simply just highlight book/journal texts - ‘it’s not learning. It’s colouring in!’ (Wood, 2018, p. 69).
• Just copy the points - remember you need to know the context for these.
• Avoid at all costs copying original text, instead paraphrase,
• Never worry about the neatness of the notes – they’re yours!
• Muddle up your ideas with points copied from a text - danger of plagiarism.
• Always think about how sensitive your notes are, and don’t share them with others.
• Your notes are valuable as you've spent time collating them and pulling ideas together, therefore, keep them safe. If they're paper-based it might be a good idea to image them, or if they're on a device/PC, make sure you've backed them up.

It is important that you understand the seriousness of plagiarism and how this is defined as 'academic misconduct'. The following information will help you and also provides advice and help.  

• Academic misconduct

• Teesside University Student Regulations

 Please take time to read them carefully. 

Our Succeed@Tees 'How to use References' workshop will also help you.  

You may also find it useful to refer to our Learning Hub Helpsheet 'How to paraphrase' and our referencing help pages.

Additional useful resources can be found on the reading list which show you how to reference your work correctly, collate good notes and help you better understand how to paraphrase, summarise and use quotations - click on the image below.

This work is licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Deed.