What is plagiarism?
According to Andersen and Tofteskov, plagiarism means imitating or copying other people’s texts directly, without referencing the source and without making it clear that this is a citation from or a summary of somebody else’s work (Andersen & Tofteskov, 2008).
At SDU, papers are handed in digitally, and are checked for plagiarism with software programmes. If you use material which is taken from somebody else’s work (text, illustrations, structure, ideas, etc.) and present it as your own, you may face an accusation of plagiarism. This may happen whether short citations, longer paragraphs or the entire work is recycled – and it makes no difference whether you copied the work on purpose or not. Self-plagiarism – recycling your own old papers or parts of them without exact references to them as your source – is also considered plagiarism.
SDU takes plagiarism very seriously, and worst case scenario is that you may be expelled from the University.
It is your own responsibility to make sure that you know the rules on plagiarism.
You can read more on SDU’s page on cheating during exams, and on the page Stopplagiat.nu.