Plagiarism  Plagiarism is an attempt to pass off the work of others (in particular the writing of others) as one's own.  The most obvious type of plagiarism is copying whole articles, sections, paragraphs or whole sentences from other publications without acknowledgement. This is clearly unacceptable.

Plagiarism  However, even the use of a few words or paraphrasing (without actually copying any words at all) may constitute plagiarism if the source is not acknowledged. Students sometimes unintentionally plagiarize because they are not aware of the very stringent rules that apply.  If material is taken from a source, there should be proper quotes and acknowledgements.

Plagiarism  In academic writing, source material, including online resources, such as websites, electronic journals or articles in an online newspaper, must be properly acknowledged. Mild cases of failure to acknowledge would be regarded as poor academic writing. Serious cases of failure to acknowledge, especially where there appears to be the intention to mislead the reader about the originality, would constitute plagiarism.

Plagiarism and copyright violation  Plagiarism is an intellectual dishonesty, whereas copyright violation is a legal offence.  To avoid plagiarism the original author should be cited.  To avoid copyright violation get the authorization from the copyright owner.  The rules for plagiarism are very strict. On the other hand it is possible to copy a reasonable amount of published text without copyright violation.