Plagiarism seems to be simple, right? However, there is more than meets the eye. There are eight common types of plagiarism. Some are more serious than others. For instance, there is:

  • Accidental plagiarism
  • Mosaic plagiarism
  • Inaccurate authorship
  • Paraphrasing plagiarism
  • Self-plagiarism
  • Direct plagiarism
  • Source-based plagiarism
  • Complete plagiarism

Moreover, with the development of AI models, a novel challenge called AI-giarism (AI plagiarism) has emerged.

In the following paragraphs, we’ll break down what all of these types mean.

inaccurate authorship plagiarism

Accidental plagiarism

Unintentional copying occurs when you plagiarize without even knowing you did. It can happen from improper paraphrasing, forgetting to put something in quotation marks, and even writing something original but it being somehow very similar to something else. Unfortunately, the consequences are still dire for this type of plagiarism.

Mosaic plagiarism

Patchwork or mosaic plagiarism is inserting phrases from other people’s writing into your sentences, working as a kind of patchwork. It is harder to detect, as plagiarists can make the parts that were copied seem very natural and incidental. However, it is another form of dishonesty.

Inaccurate authorship

You know when you are creating a team document or project, and someone doesn’t get credit? This is what happens with inaccurate authorship. Also, it is considered plagiarism to give credit to someone for something that they did not do.

Paraphrasing plagiarism

Improper paraphrasing is the most common type of plagiarism. People will copy out a few sentences, and change a few things here and there, thinking it is enough to trick a plagiarism detector that checks for similarities. Well, it isn’t. Even if you are being genuine about it, don’t try this. Always write fresh content in your own voice, with your own style of phrasing and syntax.

Self-plagiarism

Self-plagiarism is perhaps the sneakiest type, and the strangest version of plagiarism. Some students are in the habit of copying parts of their old papers and rehashing them. They might paste references, phrases, sentences, quotes, and everything else you can imagine. Often students believe that this is not plagiarism, or that it is not that serious. Meanwhile, even copying yourself has its repercussions.

Direct plagiarism

Direct plagiarism is the total copying and pasting of certain passages in texts. There are no quotation marks, no citations, or any form attribution. This is one of the easiest forms of plagiarism to detect.

Source-based plagiarism

Though not often thought of as plagiarism by students, writing sources incorrectly or making up citations is also a crime in the academic world. There are people who neglect researching and believe that the easiest thing to do is to create citations out of thin air. This will have dire consequences, though. The same is applicable to AI plagiarism which occurs when students use AI chatbots for writing an assignment. No AI model produces original content, and the resulting work can not only be flagged as AI generated which by itself is a violation of academic integrity. AI produced text can also be detected as plagiarised, entailing all the severe repercussions.

Complete plagiarism

If you want to find the most intense type of plagiarism, this is it. It is the total and absolute copying of an article, essay, paper, or anything else. Basically, all that needs to be done after totally cheating is to slap your name on this work. However, this is the easiest way to get caught by your teacher. Even a one-second Google search from the instructor will prove that the paper was plagiarized.