ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book outlines that plagiarism in the undergraduate years is not so much a matter of 'deliberate theft', though this of course occurs, but is rather a complex problem of student learning, compounded by a lack of clarity about the concept of plagiarism itself, and a lack of clear policy and pedagogy surrounding the issue. Citation is also a naturalized skill, so central to academic writing that much of its complexity is never made explicit. Plagiarism is in fact a modern Western construct which arose with die introduction of copyright laws in the eighteenth century. The analysis presented in the book shows that plagiarism is a complex, contested concept, and in student academic writing it may be the surface manifestation of complex learning difficulties which relate to the educational environment, the nature of academic discourse and the nature of language.
