Plagiarism
Plagiarism is an offence under the University regulations on examination and assessment offences. It is normally defined as the representation of another person’s work as your own, without acknowledging the source.
It can take the following forms:
- Direct copying from texts without acknowledging your source - e.g. direct quotations should have a full reference and be in inverted commas
- Paraphrasing (rewording) or summarising other people’s work without acknowledging your source – you must give the reference from which your summary/paraphrase is taken
- Both of the above points also apply to material taken from the internet – if you use material from the internet you must reference the website from which you obtained the material.
It is the failure to acknowledge others’ work/ideas as the source which constitutes plagiarism. You can be guilty of plagiarism even if you did not intend to imply that the work was your own.When you first join the University, you will be given advice on how to prepare and reference your work in an appropriate academic manner, including that for group assignments. By following this practice carefully, you should avoid any inadvertent plagiarism of others' work.
The University uses originality checking software (currently Turnitin) to provide a means whereby students may enhance their knowledge and understanding of good academic practice in order to reference material correctly, thereby minimising the risk of submitting plagiarised work in summative assessments. Details of Turnitin will be available to you from the Digital Learning Environment.