Plagiarism

Plagiarism = citation without attribution. 

This means cheating by effectively stealing someone else’s work and claiming it as your own in submitting it to be marked.

This applies equally to copying the work of colleagues and to copying and pasting or paraphrasing (yes, even small amounts) from the web / books / other sources without acknowledging them.

The web makes this so very quick and easy to do that any number of weaker students resort to it, but you must be aware that you risk being immediately ejected from your module/course if you are caught, so seriously do all universities now take this matter. 

Catching people is getting far easier nowadays: universities [UHA now included] have access to software that checks all dissertations, theses, academic reports, published books and web sources and even humble teachers can usually spot language, expression and thinking which simply does not ‘fit’ with the rest of the student’s work and check it via a search engine. 

The way to avoid plagiarism is simple:

·         Choose your sources well: make sure they are authoritative, can be trusted and are preferably up to date (as opposed to just being first on the first search-return page)

·         Put the phrases / sentences you want to present in italics for effect [we will give you due credit for having done good research and for finding vital information/insight], « put them in quotation marks » and at the end of the citation give the name of the author with the date of his work in brackets, thus: « This is how to avoid plagiarism. » Jolley (2012).  Then in the bibliography/references list provide the reader with the full details necessary to find the source online or in a library.

o   For a book:  Usunier, J-C. Marketing Across Cultures. 2000. Third edition. Financial Times / Prentice Hall

o   For an online source:

About Tonyversity. http://www.tonyversity.com/students/a-propos/ . Accessed 12.08.12.

American Harvard System.     http://libguides.bournemouth.ac.uk/bu-referencing-harvard-style

Failure to do this and getting caught may mean that you fail not only the assignment, but your module, your year and your degree/masters. In addition to this, you should know that universities operate a global ‘blacklist’ of students who have plagiarised who will find all other higher education ‘doors’ closed to them.  You have been warned – we take this VERY seriously indeed because a university’s integrity rests upon the quality of its students and the value of its degree and master’s awards.  Don’t try not to get caught: just follow the simple instructions above.

AND

Adopt either MLA or the Harvard Referencing System and use one or the other to cite and attribute your materials appropriately:

At the risk of repeating myself below… do please read on and DO look at and take on board the linked articles.

PLAGIARISM = CITATION WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION

Essentially, this means that you can’t just ‘borrow’ things from other sources and use them – those sources need to be shown clearly in the text (whether you are quoting or paraphrasing or using someone else’s ideas). Normally in the text, with the quotation or paraphrase or idea used we need the author and the date.  In a footnote and or a bibliography/references listing you will have to provide all the details necessary so that the reader can go online or to the library/bookshop and actually find and check out the source.  Let’s call it what it is: plagiarism is cheating.  And, trust me, we are catching more and more students ‘red-handed’.  Plagiarisms discovered are up 500% on courses I teach on in 2016/2017 and the penalties have been dramatic: yes, including failures of courses with no offer of re-sit and blacklisting from studying elsewhere!  You have been warned!  At least cheating by plagiarism was varied this year …  but we still caught a hell of a lot of it:

• students who used concealed telephones in exams to raid the internet for single and multiple online sources
• an individual who falsified a letter of recommendation from his placement company
• a student who had relatives and a friend do a piece of work for him and they copied online sources on his behalf
• students who copied word-for-word, ‘wholesale’ from online sources for a covering letter claiming this was not plagiarism but ‘inspiration’
• A student who got someone else to do his assignment (and the someone else plagiarised 100%)… He thought the other student would get blamed for plagiarism and didn’t think that getting someone else to do work he then put his name on was plagiarism at all!!   We enlightened them both!

Some of the above cases resulted in students failing their courses or not being able to progress without re-sitting a whole year….and possibly paying back grants (bourses)…   You have been warned.

Do read these plagiarism articles:

• Basics
• Plagiarism is NOT ‘inspiration’ and here’s the difference….
• Plagiarism uncovered
• Plagiarism Again.
• Plagiarism Bloodhound.