Plagiarism is defined by plagiarism.org.uk as:

• The repeated or habitual, intentional presentation or publication of the work of others without any or any proper acknowledgement to the source of that work by a responsible, informed individual as if it were that individual's own work.

Sometimes plagiarism refers to the taking of someone's invention, or music or mechanical idea. At www.plagiarism.org.uk we do not deal with this kind of plagiarism. We only deal with the plagiarism of ideas as expressed in language, and the plagiarism of language.

Most often the kind of plagiarism we deal with is academic or scholastic. However, on occasion we do get inquiries about industrial plagiarism. We do have the expertise to deal with industrial plagiarism. You can e-mail us with any inquiries in this regard.

Points:

• Students need to be shown exactly what plagiarism in all its forms is. They need to know how to counter it themselves. Giving students a string of regulations to follow, or pointing them to information on a web site is simply not sufficient.
• Some universities are on very shaky legal ground in respect to their published definitions of plagiarism. Many refer to unintentional plagiarism. However, it is a basic legal principle that mens rea (i.e. intention) must be demonstrated. Therefore, if the use of a source which was not cited cannot be demonstrated to have been intentional, then it follows that whatever other offence may have been committed, it cannot properly be said to be plagiarism. Undertaking this kind of demonstration is the work of specialists, in this case forensic linguists. That is what we do here at www.plagiarism.org.uk.