Plagiarism - ten key points

1. What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work as if it were your own, whether you intend to or not.

University-level writing has more requirements than pre-university writing and may be very different to your previous experiences. It is very important that you know the required standards before you submit essays and other forms of assessed work. One of the biggest changes is the requirement that your work is based on individual assessment - your own work in your own words. Any pieces of text that are taken, either in part or in whole, from another person’s work must be appropriately referenced.

A reference is used whenever your work contains someone else’s words or ideas. A reference will ensure that the reader of the assignment can identify and locate the source of the information.

If you quote directly from another person’s work you must use quotation marks around the entire quote and reference the quote.

If you paraphrase – put another person’s work into different words but with the same meaning – you must reference the work.

If you use another person’s ideas, findings or research (i.e. facts they have established) in your work you must reference the work.

Referencing styles vary between departments. You must find out which style your department requires. The Harvard system of referencing is used in text with the following information (Author. Year of Publication: Page Number) i.e (Williams, 2006: 78). The Vancouver system uses superscript numbers in the text to indicate a reference e.g. Author, (Year of Publication), Book Title, Publisher, Place of Publication, Page Number.

Referencing rules apply to internet sites in the same way as they apply to journals, books or any other work by another person.

You reference a website by listing the URL of the site where you found the information.

Unless you are specifically told that the assessment is a group project then all of the work you submit must be your own work. Be very careful when working on the same assessment with other students.

Advice on academic writing is available from the College’s Language and Learning Unit www.languageandlearning.qmul.ac.uk

Your personal advisor or any member of academic staff can advise on how to reference properly and how to write in appropriate styles

Students are most likely to submit plagiarised work, whether intentional or unintentional, during times of emotional stress.

If you are having problems (such as illness, family problems, financial problems) talk to your personal advisor or another member of staff. Departments can sometimes give short extensions to essay deadlines when a student has mitigating circumstances.

Plagiarism Detection Service – the College subscribes to a national plagiarism detection service, submit.ac.uk, which highlights text found in your work which matches text found either on the internet, journals, books and other student essays

Subject expertise – the people marking your essays are experts on the subject and will know the sources of your work.

The normal penalty for plagiarism in a piece of work worth more than 25% of the course-unit is a mark of zero for the whole course-unit and no right to take the course again. Your transcript (which future employers will want to see) will have an X on it to show that an examination offence has been committed. If it is a second offence then the normal penalty is failure in every course-unit taken in the year with all resits pegged at 40%.

If in doubt always speak to a member of staff before submitting your work – it’s too late after the work has been submitted. Questions about how to reference should be discussed with academic staff. If you have any questions about College policy on plagiarism please let me know.

Sarah Cowls
Acting Deputy Academic Secretary