Abstract:
Involving in research activities and presenting in a dissertation form is considered as a pure acedemic
activity. These researches are carried out based on the evidences of previous researches in the same
subjects. This type of refering ideas must be properly quoted. Quoting or aknowledging for the previous
researches is an activity of scholars for affirnming thier new ideas. But some scholars prentend to put
others ideas or informations as thier own due to many reasons. Especially, it is very common after the
electronic resources came into being. As this is an illegal and unethical activity, scholars are expected
to follow scholarly ways to avoid plagiarism. There are many anti-plagiarism softwares introduced to
avoid plagiarism. Kotelawala Defence University has subscribed for turnitin to promote rich research
culture among academic staff and the students as well. Anyhow students continue to plagiarise for their
research activites. Hence, this study intends to show the nature of plagiarism, find the reasons and
propose possible ways to avoid it. A mixed research methodoloy was adopted to carry out the study.
Sixty six (66) dissertations, submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies of Kotelawala Defence
University were taken as samples for the study. The importatant plagiarised places in the disserations
were revealed and reasons for the plgiarism were found
