UNIT: III SCIETIC CONDUCT

➢ Plagiarism: meaning, concept, types of plagiarism, how to avoid plagiarism

➢ Paraphrasing, citation, quotation
➢ Footnote, endnote
➢ selective reporting
➢ misrepresentation of data.
Introduction:
We can share, upload, download, view, or search any text, audio, and video. Everything is there
for free. The availability of anything and everything on the internet has made our lives easier but
people make misuse of this advantage of the internet by representing other’s work as their own for
fame, for academic benefits, for money, for personal interests, etc.
Plagiarism is most commonly practiced in academics and researches. On the internet, we have all
kinds of literary articles, educational content, research papers, etc available for free. This facilitates
everyone and assists them in gaining knowledge and becoming literate. Earlier when there were
no Internet people either had to visit libraries when they wanted to study or know anything or had
to purchase expensive books. But now we just type the topic in our browser and we get thousands
of search results. As a result, some people use these articles, research papers, educational content
in an adverse manner.
Plagiarism is a very serious offence under the university’s regulations on cheating and will
be penalized. Students’ attention is drawn to this Relation 11 in the university calendar, a
copy of which is available on the university website.
http://www2.warwick.ac.inuk/insite/info/gov/calendar/section2/regulations/cheating/
Plagiarism:
Plagiarism refers to the act of intellectual theft. In simple words, copying and using someone’s
ideas and work as their own without referring to or crediting the original source is called
Plagiarism.

The word plagiarism was first used in the English language in the year 1601 by the dramatist Ben
Jonson to describe someone who was guilty of theft.
Plagiarism is derived from the Latin word “Plagiarius” meaning “kidnapper”. Plagiarism means
stealing or copying another’s work and representing it as own work. By definition, plagiarism is
the use of previously published work by another author in one’s own manuscript without consent,
credit, or acknowledgement.
Plagiarism means “when one author intentionally uses another's work without permission, credit,
or acknowledgment.” Plagiarism generally found in following forms: Data, Words and Phrases,
Ideas and Concepts.”
For example, downloading an essay from internet and pretending it is your own or coping another
student’s work and pretending it is your own.
Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional.
Lack of awareness and ignorance lead to unintentional plagiarism. Intentional plagiarism happens
when an author deliberately copies documented or published work and presents it as his/her own.
Both types of plagiarism are unethical and illegal, which can ruin the career and reputation of the
writer.
Following are the key points to understand what can be called as plagiarism:
• If we use another person’s work under our name.
• If we copy other’s ideas and words and don’t give them the credit.
• If we download copyrighted images or music and present them as our own.
• If we copy maximum words and modify them so that we can cleverly use them under our own
name.
• If we use someone else’s copyrighted music or video for our own music cover or video.
• If we recreate an image, video, music, article, etc in such a manner that it is quite similar to the
original one.

Types of Plagiarism

There are several types of plagiarism. In this article, we will get to know the common ones:
• Complete Plagiarism: Complete Plagiarism is the most extreme form of plagiarism. In this
plagiarism, a person completely copies someone else’s work such as a research paper, article,
image, etc, and represents it as their own work. This form of plagiarism is similar to identity
theft or stealing.

• Verbatim: Verbatim is also known as direct plagiarism. When we read a book we must have
observed that if any statement that a famous person has made is always represented in double
quotations and is highlighted so that we get to know that it is said by this particular person.
Similarly consider a person writing an article and mentioning someone’s else work or words
that too exactly the same. But this person doesn’t represent it in quotation marks. Then that
person is said to be exhibiting direct plagiarism. Hence copying another person’s work word
to word and not representing it in quotation marks is known as Verbatim or direct plagiarism.

• Self Plagiarism: This kind of plagiarism is the duplication of a person’s own work. It is also
known as auto plagiarism. It occurs when a person copies some words of his own published
work and uses the same for another work. This form of plagiarism is commonly observed in
research journals. Researchers may make re-use of their research work for another research
 work, however, the percentage of re-usage must be according to those set by the publishing
journals if they allow them to do so.

• Source-Based Plagiarism: This form of plagiarism is most commonly observed in research

work. In the research paper one needs to provide references that have contributed to their work,
If a person provides wrong references that do not exist, or that are not relating to the work then
it is known as source-based plagiarism. The falsification of data or its fabrication is also source-
based plagiarism. Falsification and fabrication of data are manipulating or representing false
or non-existing data.

• Accidental Plagiarism: This kind of plagiarism mostly occurs due to a lack of knowledge. If
we don’t know how to paraphrase, cite and quote a research work we leave the work as it is
and it results in accidental plagiarism.

Why is plagiarism unethical?

• Plagiarism is unethical because we are representing someone’s other work as our own without
giving them the right to. In the real world if someone else takes our things without our
permission then we call that person a “thief” and doing so is considered as a punishable offense.
Similarly if in the virtual world someone copies someone else’s work it is unethical and is a
punishable offense.
• Plagiarism affects the integrity of academics. Researchers are given the degree of Ph.D. on
basis of their research works, students are given grades according to their homework. If we
will be practicing plagiarism we will not be gaining any knowledge. We may even succeed in
getting our Ph.D. degree or good grades but that will put our career at risk and is a threat to our
future. We will be a risk for society, organizations where we may work as we do not have the
complete knowledge of the corresponding work.
• If we use the plagiarized content for our personal benefits such as monetary gains, fame, etc
then it is unethical because we are being benefitted for what we actually have not done. We
are being rewarded without actually performing well or giving our 100 percent to get that
reward. It is immoral to do so.

How to avoid plagiarism?

There are certain steps we can follow in order to avoid plagiarism.

• Always give credit to the person whose work you are including in your own work. Make use
of double quotations to prevent verbatim.
• Build your own ideas and thoughts and use them in your work. Do not copy another person’s
ideas or work. Develop yourself and work on yourself so that you can enhance your thought
process. Increase the domain of your knowledge.
• Make use of paraphrasing. Paraphrasing means the representation of an idea or thought in our
own words in such a manner that the original essence of that idea remains the same. But we
should also do paraphrasing in such a manner that it does not convert to plagiarism.
• Use online plagiarism checker tools. There are many sites that offer plagiarism checker tools.
These sites check your work against thousands of other works available on the internet and
give you a percentage of plagiarized or unique content. They can even tell from which site the
content is copied. We should always use plagiarism checker tools in order to prevent
plagiarism. Some of the plagiarism checking tools are – Grammarly, smallseotools, turnitin,
quetext, etc.
• Always provide correct references in your research paper or article.
• Learn how to cite your articles, provide references, use double quotations, etc. You should
know how to write a scholarly article or book or research paper before you begin writing.
• If you are using someone else’s videos, images, or audios in your own video, etc always ask
them first, and even after that provide them the credit for the same.
• Keep your morals high. Be educated about plagiarism and be an ethical person. As in real life,
you don’t do bad things as you know the differentiation between what is good and bad similarly
teach your inner conscience that plagiarism is unethical and you should not make use of
plagiarized content.

Laws against plagiarism

There are many laws against plagiarism. Some of them are mentioned below-
• In section 57 of the Indian Copyright Act 1957, authors have “the right to claim authorship of
their works among other things. It grants the authors the special right to be attributed for their
work. The statute recognizes the right to attribution analogous to the rights not to be
plagiarized.”
• In section 63 of the ICA 1957, “a convicted infringer is liable to be imprisoned between six
months to three years, and to be fined between fifty thousand and two lakh rupees”.
• University Grants Commission or UGC has provided a certain set of guidelines that need to be
followed by universities in order to prevent plagiarism in academic activities.

Plagiarism Level:
Penalties in case of plagiarism in submission of thesis and dissertations Institutional Academic
Integrity Panel (IAIP) shall impose penalty considering the severity of the Plagiarism.
Level 0: Similarities upto 10% - Minor Similarities, no penalty.
Level 1: Similarities above 10% to 40% - Such student shall be asked to submit a revised script
within a stipulated time period not exceeding 6 months.
Level 2: Similarities above 40% to 60% - Such student shall be debarred from submitting a revised
script for a period of one year.
Level 3: Similarities above 60% -Such student registration for that programme shall be cancelled.
Penalties for Students Plagiarism Similarities above 10% to 4o% - Such student shall not be given
any mark and/or credit for the plagiarized script and shall be asked to submit a revised script within
a stipulated time period not exceeding 6 months.
Similarities above 40% to 6o% - Such student shall not be given any mark and/or credit for the
plagiarized script and shall be asked to submit a revise script after a time period of one year but
not exceeding eighteen months.
Similarities above 6o% -Such student shall not be given any mark and/or credit for the plagiarized
script and his/her registration for that course to be cancelled.

How to avoid Plagiarism

You can avoid plagiarism and its consequences, and you can use sources correctly.

Plagiarism is widely recognized as an immoral, unfair, and dishonest practice, which normally
deters us from engaging in it. Many ways exist to avoid plagiarism, but the consequences can be
harsh; many experts have lost their professional reputation as a result of plagiarizing. Some easy
methods were addressed while producing research papers to ensure that your content was
plagiarism free.
1. Paraphrase: When you come across any accurate material for your research piece,
read it first and then incorporate it into your own words. Make sure you don't copy
more than two words from the detected text into a raw. When there are more than
two words in a row, quote marks are used.
2. Cite: Plagiarism may be avoided by citing sources. Following your educational
institution's document formatting guidelines, such as APA, MLA, and Chicago. The
authors' names and the date of publication or correcting information are usually
required. Plagiarism can result from improper citation.
3. Quoting: Use the reference exactly as it is written. Nobody likes to be quoted
incorrectly. "Block quotations" or references of 40 words or more are frowned upon
in most higher education societies. Most content should be vividly paraphrased by
a pupil. To avoid plagiarism accusations, the citation must be completed accurately.
4. Citing Quotes: This technique refers to the insertion of a page number and a
paragraph number to an online content citation.
5. Citing your own material (Self Plagiarism): If your research piece contains your
own words or thoughts from a current project, a previous one, or anywhere else,
you must cite yourself. Use the text as you choose; it was written by someone else.
It may sound strange, but utilizing knowledge you've already used is known as
selfplagiarism, and it's not fun.
6. Referencing: At the end of your research piece, you must provide a reference page
of works, which may serve as the document formatting guidelines utilized by your
research organization. Author information, publication date, title, and source are all
included in the reference. Follow the instructions to obtain the correct reference.
 7. QuillBot: is a paraphrasing and summarizing tool that helps millions of students
and professionals cut their writing time by more than half using state-of-the-art to
rewrite any sentence, paragraph, or article.
What is Paraphrasing?
Paraphrase means to restate someone else's ideas in your own language at roughly the same level
of detail.
❖ A paraphrase is simply a rewriting of a passage in your own words.
❖ The main purpose of paraphrasing is achieving greater clarity and understanding.
❖ To paraphrase, it is essential to first acquire the skills of reading comprehension and
understand the passage the poem to effectively write a paraphrase for the same.
❖ We can paraphrase or expand the ideas in proverbs, epigrams, we can paraphrase prose,
passages, poem.
Expanding proverbs and Epigram
Example:
(1) A rolling stone gather no moss
Paraphrase: A person who frequently changes his occupation is unlikely to be
successful.
(2). “Birds of a feather flock together”
Paraphrase: Just as birds of similar species flock together, so people with similar ideas
and taste tend to associate one another.
Steps for Paraphrasing
❖ Read the entire text carefully, twice or thrice, to absorb the meaning and essence.
❖ Rewrite the author’s ideas in a unique language, i.e. in your own idea. Make sure that the
sentences and words used are your own and it should not be a mere substitution or swapping
of words and phrases.
❖ Compare the paraphrased version with the main text, and ensure that the essence clearly
presented, as well as make sure that it is free from plagiarism.
❖
CITATION and QUOTATION
Quotation and citation are terms commonly used in academic writing, research, and referencing. While
they are related, they refer to different aspects of incorporating external sources into ones work.
A quotation refers to the exact replication of text from a source, usually placed within quotation
marks.
A citation is the information that identifies the source of the of or any other referenced material,
including details such as the author's name, publication date, and page number.

Quotation:
A quotation is a direct reproduction of someone elses words, phrases, or sentences. It involves
using the exact words from a source and enclosing them in quotation marks. Quotations are
typically used when the specific wording is crucial, adds credibility, or supports a particular point
or argument. Quotations should be used sparingly and only when necessary.

Citation:
A citation, on the other hand, is a reference to the source of information used in a piece of work.
It provides the necessary details to identify and locate the source, such as the authors name, the
title of the work, the publication date, and the page numbers. Citations are used to give credit to
the original authors and to allow readers to verify the information or further explore the topic.
Citations are included in the text of the document and also compiled in a bibliography or reference
list at the end of the work.

In summary, a quotation refers to directly using someone elses words, while a citation refers to
providing a reference to the source of information used in ones work. Quotations are specific
textual excerpts, while citations are broader references to the original sources.

FOOTNOTE, ENDNOTE
Footnotes and Endnotes they are basically the same.
The one difference between footnotes and endnotes is that footnotes appear at the bottom of the
same page, while endnotes appear at the end of the paper.
Footnotes more likely interrupt reader’s flow of reading; endnotes do not interrupt the flow of
reading.
Footnotes and endnotes often appear in the same discussion.
Footnotes and endnotes are used in printed documents to explain, comment on, or provide
references for text in a document.
Many people use footnotes for detailed comments and endnotes for citation of sources.
How to insert a footnote
A footnote can appear at the end of the page.
First you open a MS word document and click on the tab “References” on the office ribbon;
you’ll see the insert options.

How to insert an Endnote:

Endnote appears at the end of a document/article/ chapter or book.
Click on the ‘References’ Tab on the ribbon, you’ll see ‘footnote’ click on the small arrow.
Click on the “endnote” option.
Purpose of Footnote and Endnote
✓ The main purpose of a footnote or endnote is to provide the readers with more
information in the document.
✓ Since it is not possible to fit all the significant data in the main body of the document,
you can put the clarifying details about certain term or information on the text of these
notes.
✓ These notes save the readers from the trouble of looking elsewhere for further
information.
✓ The footnotes and endnotes can also be used to mention the source of particular
information.
✓ Both footnote and endnotes are generally used in academic writing, especially in research
paper
Advantages of using footnotes:
Easy to locate readers can find footnotes at the end of the page.
Guides readers directly and instantly to the citation or the idea related to the specific part of
information.
Footnotes are included automatically when printing specific pages.
Does not take time to find the note at the back of the paper to link the footnote to the subject of
the text.
Readers can quickly look down the end of the page to find the extra information or identify a
source.
Disadvantages of using footnotes:
Using too many footnotes in one page may clutter the page and make it difficult to read.
Adding a lot of information in one footnote may dominate the page and distract readers from the
main subject.
If there are multiple columns, charts, or tables, short footnotes will be lost and need to be moved
to another place.
Advantages of using Endnotes:
Endnotes are not distracting as footnotes because endnotes are usually located in a separate part
of the paper.
Readers can check all detailed and supplementary information in one located section of the
paper.
Readers can read all the notes at once.
Endnotes do not clutter up the page.
Disadvantages of using Endnotes:
Readers must go to another part or section to get detailed information this could be distracting.
Using endnotes can be confusing sometimes if there are different chapters. Readers might need
to remember chapter numbers and the endnote number to be able to find the correct endnote.
Endnotes may carry a negative connotation much like the proverbial "fine print" or some hidden
disclaimers in advertising.

Selective Reporting
Definition: Selective reporting occurs when researchers or organizations choose to report only
certain outcomes or results from a study while omitting others. This can create a biased view of
the findings.

Selective reporting refers to the act of intentionally presenting or omitting certain information, data
or result in a biased manner to support a particular viewpoint, hypothesis or conclusion.

Types of selective reporting

Publication Bias: This occurs when studies with significant or positive results are more likely to
be published than studies with non-significant or negative results. This can lead to an
overestimation of the true and can skew the scientific literature.
Overcome Reporting Bias:
This occurs when only certain outcomes of a study are reported, while others are not. This can
occur when the reported outcomes are more favorable to the author’s hypothesis or agenda.
Data dredging: This occurs when multiple statistical tests are performed on a dataset to find
significant results, even if the results are not meaningful or relevant. This can lead to false-positive
results and can be a form of data manipulation.
Misrepresentation of Data
It refers to the manipulation or distortion of dada to create a false or misleading impression. This
can be done by selectively choosing data, altering or omitting data or presenting data in a way that
obscures the true meaning or significance of the information. Misrepresentation of data is
communicating honestly, report data in a deceptive manner.
Types of misrepresentation of Data
 Data Falsification: This occurs when data is intentionally altered or fabricated to support
a particular hypothesis or conclusion. This is a serious ethical violation and can have severe
consequences for the individual and the organization involved.
 Data cherry-picking: This occurs when only certain data are selected or highlighted to
support a particular conclusion, while other data are ignored or de-emphasized. This can
lead to biased or incomplete information of the overall data.
 Data misinterpretation: This occurs when data is presented in a way that is misleading or
misinterpreted. This can include presenting correlation as causation, or failing to
acknowledge alternative explanations for the data.
 Data omission: This occurs when relevant data is left out of a report or analysis, either
intentionally or unintentionally. This can lead to an incomplete or inaccurate information
of the overall data.