Plagiarism / Plagiat

Plagiarism is presenting someone else's work as your own, whether this is intentional or not. As a student, as with any academic, you must cite others when drawing on their work – be it in the form of a quotation, a paraphrase, in drawing on their ideas, and so on.

To ensure that students do not commit plagiarism, the university requires that all submitted written assignments are checked using sophisticated plagiarism software. This software checks over 45 billion websites, 400 million student assignments, and 130 million articles.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you conform to these rules of academic integrity. If your work is found to breach the rules, the consequences can be extremely severe.


Training and Resources

Extensive information and online training to avoid plagiarism is available from the Schreiberatung in the Faculty of Social Sciences. Currently, this information is only available in German.

For detailed information in English on what plagiarism is, what forms it can take, and practical measures you can take to avoid it, the University of Oxford offers this very useful information. More information can also be found here on using sources and paraphrasing. An online training course in avoiding plagiarism is available from the Excelsior Online Writing Lab.

For details on correctly citing references, see the section entitled "References" in the Guidelines for academic assessments.

Citavi and some other similar programmes can be especially effective citation tools, and can help you organise your materials to avoid accidental plagiarism. As a student, you are entitled to Citavi for free. The SUB proivdes information and training courses for different Citabvi and Zotero. Online training and the free download is provided by Zotero.

CeMIS can also arrange for training in English, provided enough people are interested. If you have questions about plagiarism, are looking for some guidance, or are interested in a Citavi or Zotero training course in English, please contact Study Advisor Michael Dickhardt.


Regulations in detail

The exact wording of the rules around Plagiarism can be found here:

+ For BA students: In the Allgemeine Prüfungsordnung (APO) under "§ 18 Rücktritt, Versäumnis, Täuschung, Ordnungsverstoß" & "§ 19 Ungültigkeit von Prüfungen" (for BA students).

+ For MA students: In the General examination and programme rules and regulations for B.A. and M.A. programmes under "Regulation 18 Withdrawal, Default, Cheating, Violation of Rules" and "Regulation 19 Invalidity of Examinations".