What is Plagiarism?
Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work or borrowing someone else's original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offense:
According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarise" means:
In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward
Copyright can be defined as: "A bundle of intangible rights granted by statute to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions, whereby, for a limited period, the exclusive privilege is given to that person (or to any party to whom he or she transfers ownership) to make copies of the same for publication and sale" (Source) Examples are: a novel; poem; photograph; movie; painting, etc.
Copyright Infringement:
"Copyright infringement involves any violation of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner. It may be unintentional or intentional." (Source)
Fair Use:
"Fair use is a judicial doctrine that refers to the use of copyrighted material that does not infringe or violate the exclusive rights of the copyright holder. Fair use is an important and well-established limitation on the exclusive right of copyright owners. (Source)
Turnitin can be defined as an originality checking and plagiarism prevention service that checks your writing for citation mistakes or inappropriate copying. When you submit your paper, Turnitin compares it to text in its massive database of student work, websites, books, articles, etc.
Turnitin is integrated into the Assignments tool, this means that when you upload your paper to your classroom for grading, it will automatically be sent through Turnitin's repository, with no need to log in separately at Turnitin.com. The Similarity Report that it generates will help identify possible instances of plagiarism.