This thesis, organised into seven chapters, is about plagiarism in the academic context. it presents different perspectives to be considered in order to define plagiarism, an investigation of its origin and specificities in academia. then, two different panoramas about how plagiarism has been treated are presented: 1) at ufsc (universidade federal de santa catarina), in which some problems were identified; and 2) at the uob (university of birmingham), as a series of consistent efforts have been made in the uk since 2002 to deal with plagiarism. the objective, then, was to analyse the approach adopted at the uob in order to support the development of suggestions to improve the situation at ufsc. therefore, it was possible to produce a proposal to ufsc in order to work on detection and prevention through the creation and adoption of anti-plagiarism policies. these policies include the establishment of specific institutional rules and of an institutional structure to deal with cases of plagiarism, the offer of courses on academic writing, and the oriented employment of detection software. the thesis also explores the difference between intentional and unintentional plagiarism as well as some strategies that are used to conceal especially the former, such as translation. it was intended to emphasise other aspects related to plagiarism besides the usually focused ethical concerns, which are relevant, but they are out of the reach of teachers and linguists. results pointed to the need of long-term changes in education, such as through the teaching of academic writing skills, and also of shorter-term measures, such as the implementation of policies to better approach plagiarism in universities. such measures may provide a more effective means to combat plagiarism.