What is Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined as the presentation of another person's thoughts or words or artifacts or software as though they were a student's own. Any quotation from the published or unpublished works of other persons must, therefore, be clearly identified as such by being placed inside quotation marks, and students should identify their sources as accurately and fully as possible. A series of short quotations from several different sources, if not clearly identified as such, constitutes plagiarism just as much as does a single unacknowledged long quotation from a single source. Equally, if a student summarises another person's ideas, judgements, figures, software or diagrams, a reference to that person in the text must be made and the work referred to must be included in the bibliography.
Where part of an examination consists of 'take away' papers, essays or other work written in a student's own time, or a coursework assessment, the work submitted must be the candidate's own.
Self-plagiarism involves submitting the same material for assessment multiple times. No work,
in part or whole, may be credited to a degree programme more than once.
Though we take misconduct and irregularities seriously, no one wants these to occur. Students
with questions or who find themselves in an ambiguous situation should speak with their
Tutor. We want to help students avoid these problems.
What is considered plagiarism
- Turning in someone else's work as your own
- Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
- Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
- Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
- Changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
- Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not
Believe it or not…
Changing the words of an original source is not sufficient to prevent plagiarism. If you have retained the essential idea of an original source, and have not cited it, then no matter how drastically you may have altered its context or presentation, you have still plagiarized.
Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided, however, by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed, and providing your audience with the information necessary to find that source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism.
The penalties for plagiarism can be surprisingly severe, ranging from failure of classes to expulsion from academic institutions!
Why do students plagiarise?
There are two main types of plagiarism – intentional and unintentional. The list below is not exhaustive but contains the most commonly encountered reasons:
On the whole unintentional:
Misunderstanding about citation
Over-reliance on the original source material
Following practices encouraged or accepted in previous educational experience or culture
Not fully understanding when group work ceases and individual work begins
Compensating for poor English language skills
Poor note-taking practice
On the whole intentional
Leaving the work to the last minute and taking the easy option
Needing to succeed
Sheer panic
Thinking that it is easy to get away with it
Having problems with the workload
Copying others is easier than original work
Sensing that the teacher will not mind
What does this mean in practice for you, as a student at St Clements ?
It means you CAN'T do the following:
Cut and paste from electronic journals, websites or other sources to create a piece of work.
Use someone else's work as your own.
Recycle essays or practical work of other people or your own.
Employ a professional ghostwriting firm or anyone else to produce work for you.
Produce a piece of work based on someone else's ideas without citing them.
So what CAN you do?
You can quote from sources providing you use quotation marks and cite the source (this includes websites).
You can paraphrase (take information from a piece of work and rewrite it in a new form) but you must still mention the source.
In the case of joint practical or project work (or some group projects) individuals may use the same data, but the interpretation and conclusions derived from that data i.e. the ‘write-up’ must be their own.