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School of Medicine and Dentistry

Medical Student Handbook

Plagiarism

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The following information is provided to assist students in understanding the parameters used in defining plagiarism.

Students are sometimes uncertain about what constitutes misuse of another person's expressed ideas. This statement is designed to explain the limits normally used to define plagiarism.

  1. Plagiarism is literary theft, intentional or unintentional. It is the use of a unique idea or phrase which does not originate with the user, without proper acknowledgment of the source.
  2. In written papers, due credit to the original source of major or unique ideas (i.e., ideas which you could not and did not arrive at by yourself) must be given in the form of footnotes or clear allusions at the proper places in the paper itself. These precise indications of source must be given whether the material is paraphrased or quoted directly. An appended bibliography only is insufficient acknowledgment.
  3. Quotation marks must enclose all direct quotations even though the quoted material is no more than occasional phrases interspersed with original observations.
  4. Illegitimate use of written material or the obtaining of information from other students while an examination is in progress constitutes plagiarism.
Source: Department of English, University of Rochester