A PhD thesis entitled (text plagiarism in academic writing among postgraduate students in the departments of Arabic and English in Iraq: a contrastive study in the misuse of sources) was discussed in the Department of English at the College of Arts at the University of Basrah.

The thesis presented by student Mai Ali Abdel-Amir included five chapters. The first chapter discussed the introductions of the study, which contained seven titles: the problem of the study, the objectives of the study, research questions, research procedures, the importance of the study, the definition of the study, the definition of key terms, the second chapter discussed the theoretical aspect of the study in academic writing, the third chapter included data collection method of two types: textual data and questionnaire data, the fourth chapter was entitled (Data Analysis and Interpretation), which presented the results of the analysis of the textual data and the questionnaire, and the fifth chapter was entitled (Conclusion, Suggestions and Recommendations).

The thesis aims to reveal the way in which Iraqi postgraduate students in the Arabic and English departments write quoting from their sources and whether the language of writing in which they write affects their practices in using the sources. For the purpose of the investigation, samples were taken from 20 master's theses written by Iraqi students in the Arabic and English departments for the purpose of analysis.