5 tips to avoid plagiarism

"Research is unanimous in confirming that the plagiarist usually develops this deviant behavior during his doctoral studies", assures Michelle Bergadaa, a marketing and communications professor from Geneva University (Switzerland) and a plagiarism specialist. However, it is difficult to quantify this practice : In a report on fraud and plagiarism dating from April 2012,  the French General Inspectorate of the Administration of National Education and Research (IGAENR) indicates that no national census of student disciplinary referrals is conducted in higher education institutions. (Disciplinary referrals are only used for extreme plagiarism cases anyway).

For PhD students, it is nonetheless necessary to fully understand the rules. It is the Intellectual Property Code that defines plagiarism and counterfeiting as follows :
"Any reproduction, representation or distribution via whatever means of an intellectual work in violation with author's rights". This implies that in every copy of a third party 's work, it is necessary to clearly indicate the name of the author and the source, notably by using quotation marks. However, be careful about paraphrasing. It is not enough to simply replace words by others ; the sentence's structure must be rethought, without forgetting to cite your source.

Therefore, plagiarizing verbatim an introduction is just as reprehensible as copying a diagram without authorization. Nevertheless, according to the young woman, assessment is also at fault : "in front of the thesis defense committee, scientific results will of course be valued which is not necessarily the case for a well written introduction."

Choosing your thesis supervisor wisely to avoid plagiarism does not seem to be self-evident. Nonetheless, " it is when a PhD student starts facing problems that he is presented with two options : he can either give up on the thesis or start cheating " says Michelle Bergadaa. At that very moment, the role of the thesis supervisor is crucial. However, choosing a good thesis supervisor does not mean going for the " nice one " or the charismatic figure. Quite the contrary! “ Writing a thesis usually involves being confronted with a series of obstacles, more and more difficult to overcome. You should choose the one that will demonstrate honesty and that will be readily available when needed ” , she explains.

Many PhD schools offer Patent and Intellectual Propriety training courses as well as courses that provide tips on how to turn a thesis into a book or courses on citation methods. But it's the students who decide what courses they want to enroll in. However, Juliette Guerin does not recommend to make those courses compulsory. " We expect PhD students to be responsible " she points out. A 2012 report from the French General Inspectorate of the Administration of National Education and Research (IGAENR) on scientific fraud advised to reinforce prevention efforts by raising awareness about this problem in the young researchers’ community. In addition to training courses, many universities, whether they be in Quebec, Belgium or Switzerland provide a plagiarism self-test. Others, like Centrale Lille in France, launched an awareness video now used in some MOOCs. These are all measures intended to help a student avoid becoming a potential plagiarist. “ Otherwise he will remain a plagiarist his whole life " assures Michel Bergadaa. With the Publish or Perish culture, plagiarism will become an automatism. Kind of like doping in cycling, she remarks. How can you ever stop ?