PLAGIARISM? I KNOW A DEFINITION, BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT MEANS ...

Most researchers believe that plagiarism is a serious problem and some actions have to be taken to reduce its occurrence. One aspect of this problem concerns unintentional plagiarism which takes place when a student accidentally, through carelessness or lack of skill, uses another person's words without acknowledging it (Gillet 2001). This may happen for many reasons starting from forgetting to include references, through difficulties with expressing another person's ideas in student's own words, to unawareness of the term plagiarism. Therefore, the first step in tackling the problem should be to define the concept of plagiarism and to make sure that students are aware of its meaning. On the other hand, having a definition included in the university policy or checking if students are familiar with the expression may not guarantee proper understanding of the rules and recognising differences between acceptable and unacceptable practice. This study aimed at comparing definitions of plagiarism presented by the students with their real understanding of where the line between acceptable and unacceptable practice is. The author analysed the answers stated to the question: "define what you understand by plagiarism" by investigating the keywords visible in the presented definitions and qualitatively compared them with responses to the more practical multiple-choice question: "indicate your judgment on plagiarism" which, by asking to examine different examples of academic misconduct, aimed at applying theory into practice. Comparing these two sets of questions the author was able to investigate differences between the students' perception of the concept and their actual understanding of what constitutes plagiarism. Results exposed cases of plagiarism which were not considered misconduct or, according to the students, should not be penalised, therefore might be perceived as perfectly acceptable academic practice. This advocates the need of making sure that students fully understand of what constitutes plagiarism which can then become a stepping stone towards teaching them how to avoid it. This paper has been based on extracts from the author's unpublished draft PhD thesis.