What is Plagiarism, Academic Misconduct | Study Coach
Study Coach Online Academic Support for University and College students, supporting students to meet learning outcomes and raise essay/dissertation grade. Submit your draft assignment to Study Coach today. The following content will help you to avoid plagiarism. If you have a question about Plagiarism or need an Essay Support Service, then do get in touch with Study Coach UK. Email: info@studycoachuk.com
At the start of the university year the academic support department will usually provide students with rules surrounding plagiarism. In brief, the rule is: Don’t Plagiarise/Avoid Academic Misconduct. Students are therefore being informed but yet some students will later breach plagiarism rules. Further Education Colleges will also provide students with information about plagiarism.
Study Coach UK
Morel Benard would like to help students to understand the meaning of plagiarism and therefore to avoid being penalised. Study Coach is sympathetic to students and feel that for many students making the transition from Sixth Form to College/University might be a little overwhelming and rules about plagiarism might be heard but not fully understood. Study Coach UK will simplify the meaning of ‘plagiarism’ in other blogs and via Study Coach podcast. Here is a podcast link:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/study-coach/id1588571376
We further suggest that students should read-up on the importance of referencing, since referencing and plagiarism are connected, click here for a blog on referencing: https://www.studycoachuk.com/academic-support-referencing/
UNIVERSITY EXPECTATIONS & INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
There is a view that students arrive at University with the expectation that the standard of work they will produce at University will be similar to what they produced at secondary education. For mature students who may have spent years outside of education prior to taking a 1 year Access course to enter University, expectations about academic requirements will clearly be challenging. It is therefore not surprising that rules surrounding plagiarism might need to be repeated over and over again for students to adopt new expectations. International students from some jurisdiction may also need to be introduced to the concept of plagiarism.
DEFINITION of PLAGIARISM/ACADEMIC MISCONDUCT
Students should first note that Universities and Colleges do make use of several terms to refer to plagiarism. For example, London Metropolitan University student.londonmet.ac.uk refers to academic misconduct. London Metropolitan University states that: “The University takes academic misconduct very seriously and seeks at all times to rigorously protect its academic standards. Plagiarism, collusion and other forms of cheating constitute academic misconduct.”
PLAGIARISM & GROUP WORK
Assignments should be evidenced with relevant academic research and these should be clearly acknowledged, including acknowledging quotes. Failure not to reference sources could be deemed as plagiarism and students could be heavily penalised. If you have worked closely with others in preparing an assignment, you still need to ensure that the work you are presenting is sufficiently your own. In other words you worked together but don’t write-up together. If the work is a group presentation it will not be deemed to be academic misconduct. Now, I know that it is important to make friends at College/University, but if the friendship is going to be based on you assisting/colluding with your friends to write assignments, then my advice to you is to end the friendship (tough love).
WORDS
Students need to learn academic honesty, meaning that work submitted for marking must be the student’s own work, and must be the student’s own words. This last sentence might sound a little crazy but the point being made is that a student should not copy and paste researchers’ words and submit as their own.
REFERENCE
Don’t take ownership of somebody’s words simply because you read their book. The work is not yours, it belongs to the author, you can cite the work but you need to reference the source. Furthermore, taking chunks of text from books, articles, websites and appropriately citing the source will still be deemed to be plagiarism.
If you’re left wondering how you can plagiarise when you have appropriately referenced the source, the issue is if a student takes chunks of text from a source, but have no input into what is typed-up. If you choose to quote researchers (by typing-up chunks of their work) you will need to discuss the quotes, discuss the statements, discuss the data. You need to give a good rationale for deciding to rely on the researcher’s words; you need to raise arguments, critique what you have typed-up. In summary, you need to have an input into your assignment. Furthermore, if you have no input into the assignment apart from typing-up the author’s words, you should expect to receive a feedback stating ‘descriptive work’. Your aim is to be discursive not descriptive.
WHAT IS DISHONEST?
It is better to be informed that to regret not knowing, so make time to establish the meaning of ‘dishonest’ in an assessment and to be aware of the possible penalties if there is failure to comply. Some acts of dishonesty are: cheating in exams, fabricating data, impersonation, working as a syndication, colluding, attributing researchers work to self. The importance of referencing cannot be stressed enough, students should follow Harvard referencing guidelines and remember that work submitted for marking is likely to be submitted through the Turnitin system. It is possible that Turnitin or a similar system is not currently used in your home country (if you are an international student). International students should therefore become informed about the application and similar systems. Turnitin www.turnitin.com is a computing system to promote academic integrity, the system will generate a similarity report and will identify where a student has taken words from.
PLAGIARISM RULES
I believe that most universities in the UK, will require students to sign an acknowledgement of being aware about plagiarism/academic honesty rules. International students should note this point since this might not be the practice in other parts of the world. From my brief search looking at universities in and outside of London, Anglia Ruskin University https://aru.ac.uk Birmingham University www.birmingham.ac.uk Bradford University bradford.ac.uk all make it clear to students that plagiarism rules should be observed.
Bradford University bradford.ac.uk highlights the connection between referencing and plagiarism and raise the question of ‘What is a reference?’
For both Home students and International students, please note that the answer given by Bradford is that: a reference is the way that you acknowledge your use of other people’s work. There are two parts: The citation is a pointer in the text of your work, saying that you are using someone else’s ideas. The reference gives the full details of where the information came from. You put it in a reference list at the end of your work.
To avoid plagiarism students therefore need to reference correctly. Do take a read of previous blogs written by Study Coach on the topic of academic support and referencing.
PENALTY FOR MISCONDUCT/PLAGIARISM
There is a penalty for plagiarism/academic misconduct, and it can be severe. This should come as no surprise since students have been warned that academic misconduct is not permitted, students should therefore heed the warning. University/Colleges are likely to have graduated penalties for the type of academic misconduct. Students might receive a reprimand or it might lead to expulsion from the University or College (this could be very embarrassing). Study Coach UK don’t want you to end up crying, so please don’t plagiarise.
CONTACT: If you have a question about Plagiarism or need an Academic Support Service, then do get in touch with Study Coach UK. Email: Morel Benard info@studycoachuk.com
