Prevention of plagiarism

We have compiled detailed information for you below.

Why is citation necessary?

Both in your studies as well as in scientific research, the fundamental values and principles of scientific integrity must be adhered to when writing scientific papers and texts.

Citing is an essential part of this: it shows that your text or research is related to other texts, sources and research results and is part of a broader academic discourse. Your own and other people’s results are interlinked, and it becomes clear where you position yourself in the research landscape. Accordingly, you must select the information you integrate into your own text in a sensible and targeted manner.

By referencing third parties, you can support your own scientific argumentation with the ideas of other people and with evidence. At the same time, you make it transparent which information comes from which other authors. This allows readers to use the information provided to efficiently locate the sources you have used, to look them up themselves and to follow up on the ideas of others.

The obligation to cite a source correctly is also enshrined in external page Copyright Law (Art. 25). Sources include, for example, texts, images, interviews, code, research data from other researchers, blog posts, blueprints, etc. The form or medium in which the source is published is irrelevant.

When is citation required?

The following graphic will help you decide whether or not you need to include a source citation in your scientific paper.

What are citation styles?

A citation style specifies in detail how the references are to be formatted. These include the short references in the text as well as the complete references in the bibliography. Although there are hundreds of citation styles, some are used particularly frequently, such as APA, Chicago, Harvard, IEEE, MLA, etc.

The citation styles help to format references in a standardised way. This ensures that all authors publish according to generally applicable rules in a scientific field or a journal. Before writing your academic paper, find out which citation style is used in your department or academic field or is required for publications by publishers and journals. If no citation style is specified for Bachelor's or Master's theses, please contact your supervisor.

There is a distinction of three systems within which there are different citation styles, each with different rules:

Correct citation thanks to reference management software

A reference management software helps you maintain an overview when searching for scientific information and thus avoid plagiarism. How does it work? A reference management software

• helps you organise your literature and keep track of what you have already read or do not want to read,
• generates fully formatted bibliographic information with a single click,
• automatically creates the references in the text and the bibliography in the citation style you use, which contributes significantly to the prevention of plagiarism,
• allows you to take notes on the managed literature.

Important to know: Check the references anyway – especially if it is not a common source. If you want to look up if a source is referenced correctly, use external page Cite Them Right.

Detailed information can be found in the self-study course Find your reference management programme! on the Moodle platform.

The role of the bibliography

To support the argumentation in your scientific text, you draw on sources from other scientists. These sources – both published and unpublished – are listed completely, clearly and uniformly in a bibliography. Readers are thus provided with indications to the topic and content of your work. At the same time, your supervisor and your readers are able to determine whether you have dealt with the sources relevant to your subject area.

Thanks to the bibliography, the sources you have consulted can be clearly identified. It contains only those publications that you have actually consulted and appear in your text.

How the sources are formatted depends on the citation style you use. Since a reference management programme automatically creates the bibliography correctly – in accordance with the selected citation style – changes made in the reference management programme are also automatically updated in the bibliography.

In addition, you should clarify which requirements your department or journal has regarding the bibliography.

What are sources?

There are three different types of sources. Before you include information in your own work, you should first verify that the source is trustworthy.

Citing and referencing in times of generative artificial intelligence 

What does the use of generative artificial intelligence mean with regard to citation and plagiarism? How must the use of generative AI tools be declared?

• On our website Plagiarism and generative Artificial Intelligence, we have compiled some useful information.
• Please also refer to the website AI in Teaching and Learning, which contains ETH Zurich's guidelines on the use of generative AI tools. You will also find an overview of common tools, background information on how they work, information on maintaining scientific integrity and on further training opportunities.
• Publishers and research funders have issued guidelines on the use and declaration of generative AI tools. Please refer to their websites for further information.
• The use of generative AI tools raises many other legal questions: Can content from licensed scientific sources be entered into AI tools? Is it allowed to share full texts, journal articles, books, book chapters or other data licensed by the ETH Library with these platforms? We have summarised the conditions in the ETH Library handbook under the heading Artificial Intelligence: Use of Licensed Full Texts in Generative AI Tools.

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism occurs when information from a third-party source is incorporated into one's own text without citing the source and the copyright holders. Sources include, for example, text, illustrations, interviews, code, research data from other researchers, blog posts, construction or blueprints, etc. The data may be available in print, online as open access or provided by a publisher or in another media form.

The following examples are considered plagiarism:

• A text or content is taken from a source (third-party intellectual property) without identifying the source.
• Internet sources lack a DOI or URL.
• A foreign-language text is translated without indicating the source of the original.
• References in the text are missing and for direct quotes are lacking quotation marks.
• Parts of the text are copied from the writer’s own previous work without this being clearly declared (so-called self-plagiarism).
• Submitting the work of another author under one’s own name, even with the permission of the original author (a.k.a. collusion), is not permitted and will result in consequences for both parties.

A special form of plagiarism is ghostwriting, where a person submits a work under their own name that was written by a third party as a commissioned work.

Generative artificial intelligence

Output created by generative artificial intelligence cannot be attributed to any author. Because the output is not reproducible or reliable, it does not constitute a citable or citation-worthy scientific source. If tools based on artificial intelligence are used, they must be declared or identified transparently. Failure to declare the use of such tools amounts to ghostwriting.

Authors of Bachelor’s, Master’s and doctoral theses must sign a declaration of originality stating whether generative artificial intelligence tools were used in their work. In this context, an individual agreement with the supervisor is decisive as to whether AI must be declared or not.

Consequences of plagiarism

Plagiarism, ghostwriting, and the unauthorised, undeclared use of generative artificial intelligence technology constitute deception of the readership with regard to the origin of the text and may invoke disciplinary proceedings as per the ETH Zurich Ordinance on Disciplinary Measures  of 10 November 2020 (SR 414.138.1). Detailed information on these proceedings and their jurisdiction can be found on the Disciplinary affairs website.

Obvious types of plagiarism

The most frequent form of plagiarism that occurs is copying without specifying where the information used comes from. This type of plagiarism ranges from copying a few passages (copy-paste plagiarism) to copying an entire paper and submitting it under one's own name (so-called full plagiarism).

Another common way in which plagiarism can occur is through inaccurate work:

• References for quotations, paraphrases or summaries are missing.
• A source is not listed in the bibliography.

Therefore, always make sure to work diligently and check for the issues listed above before submitting your text.

Less obvious types of plagiarism 

In addition to these more obvious types of plagiarism, there are some other, lesser-known forms of plagiarism:

What is general knowledge?

Information is considered general knowledge if it is publicly available in at least five trustworthy sources and is neither new, controversial nor unusual. Here are two examples:

• Einstein studied at ETH Zurich.
• The Second World War ended in 1945.

There is also general knowledge in the respective subject areas. This is usually referred to as knowledge that is acquired in the first foundation year of the degree programme. General knowledge increases over the course of one’s studies, so a Bachelor's thesis requires more comprehensive citations than a Master's or doctoral thesis.

The problem with general knowledge in academic writing is that there is no clear boundary as to what counts as such and what does not. If in doubt, think about who will read your work – colleagues with a comparable level of knowledge should have the same general knowledge as you. If you are still uncertain, you have two options on how to proceed:

1. Ask your supervisor whether a certain piece of information counts as general knowledge.
2. Or simply cite the source. It is never wrong to state where information comes from.

Direct quote

A direct quote is when content is taken from a source verbatim – including outdated forms of spelling or spelling mistakes.

When should you incorporate a direct quote into your text? This is recommended in the following cases:

• Your argument is decisively supported by the addition of an important piece of evidence.
• An expert makes a certain statement and you want to emphasise that you have noticed it.
• An author encapsulates something precisely and you cannot say it better in your own words.
• The exact wording is crucial.
• It will stylistically improve your text.
• For definitions and standards.

Paraphrase

Paraphrasing is the method you mainly need when writing your introduction, in which you provide an overview of the current state of research. This serves to situate your work in its scientific context: you show what other researchers have achieved in a particular field, highlight how your work fits into the scientific context and why it is important for research. By paraphrasing, you can elegantly borrow ideas and thoughts from others – a legitimate practice in academic writing.

Diligence is key

Note down the following information while searching for information and reading:

• Full title including subtitle
• Publication year of the source
• Page numbers in the case of an article, books, etc.
• Full name of the author (first and last names)
• Document in which the article is found, including the name of the publisher and place of publication
• Title of the journal, including issue number and year, publisher and place of publication
• For electronic resources: the DOI (permanent link) or URL and the date of last access
• For code: date of last access and URL as well as information about the author
• For generative AI tools: the prompts and the date when they were created
• Full details of the generative AI tool used, including version, date of last access and the use case

Make sure that you carefully record all this information about the sources you use right from the start. A reference management programme such as Zotero, EndNote, Mendeley, Citavi or Bibtex can help you to gather the relevant information and keep track of it.

Cite Them Right

For detailed information on the subject of citation, paraphrasing and, above all, citation styles, please consult external page Cite Them Right. The platform, which is licensed by ETH Zurich, offers in-depth information on the topic of citation and lists the citation styles that are most frequently used across disciplines. You will also find information on how to cite output from generative AI tools in the various citation styles.

external page Quick guide to using Cite Them Right

Further reading

Many university libraries have compiled extensive information on the topics of plagiarism, citation and artificial intelligence, for example:

• Harvard University, Massachusetts, USA
  external page Artificial Intelligence for Research and Scholarship - Research Guides at Harvard Library
• University College London, UK
  external page References, citations and avoiding plagiarism - Guides and databases at University College London, Global
• Technical University of Munich, Germany
  external page Citation guide | Technical University Munich
• University of Sheffield, UK
  external page Generative AI literacy - Generative AI literacy - Library Guides at University of Sheffield
  
• University of Toronto, Kanada
  external page Why Cite? - Citing Sources / Create Your Bibliography - Research guides at University of Toronto