Plagiarism is defined as “The use of someone else’s work without proper acknowledgement.”[1] It is basically copying someones work without permission to use it. This is a crime, and can lead to being legally prosecuted. This can be solved by referencing other peoples work that you might find during research. This can be done by footnotes or bibliographies[2], which state where the source of the information is, and who produced the original information. This means that anyone who reads the work which has used the original information can check the original source, for more information regarding the topic. Many people make sure they can prove that work is their own, so that the cases cannot be turned around and made to look like they have copied work. This is done through copyrighting material, with the date it was copyrighted proving when the material was produced. You cannot be sent to prison for plagiarism, but you can be sued, because it is still a prosecutable crime.
[1] From The “Plagiarism and Referencing Fact Sheet” by the Library & Information Centres.
[2] A bibliography is something which lists all the sources that are used in a document, they are usually used when producing large documents, where a large number of sources are needed. Footnotes are more common when only producing a small document, where a limited number of sources are needed.
