Saudi Electronic University Academic Writing Standards and APA Style Guidelines: Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the deliberate adoption or reproduction of ideas, words, or statements of another person as one's own without acknowledgement.  You should follow these rules:

• When you use exact words, you must use quotation marks and provide a citation.
• When you use an idea but put information into your own words (paraphrasing), you must provide a citation.
• When you use an image, audio or video created by someone else, you must provide a source.

Plagiarism includes the submission of work written in part, or in whole, by a family member, friend, or associate.

As strange as it may seem, you are committing self-plagiarism if you reuse your work from previous classes without appropriate citation. If you have made a point or conducted research in one paper that you would like to build on in a later paper, you must cite yourself, just as you would cite the work of others. If you cite or quote your previous work, treat yourself as the author and your own previous course work as an unpublished paper, as shown below.

For example, if Jane Doe wanted to cite a paper she wrote at SEU in 2012, her in-text citation might look like this:

Doe (2012) asserted that “diversity is an important part of leadership training” (p. 4).

The reference citation would look like this:

Doe, J. (2012). Diversity and leadership. Unpublished manuscript, Saudi Electronic University, Greenwood Village, CO.

SEU assignments are designed to build professional skills, develop critical thinking, and ensure students are able to meet the learning outcomes of each course. In order to accomplish these goals, the re-use and re-purposing policy limits the amount of prior work that can be recycled or reapplied in either a repeated or subsequent course. No more than 20% of an assignment’s content should consist of quoted material (from either an external source or your own previously submitted content) unless the student has obtained permission from their current instructor. This policy allows for use of a limited amount of prior research, data, or quotes while ensuring that up-to-date analysis and application are being made to address the unique course assignment and learning outcomes. When repeating a course, students should plan to submit newly created work.