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Library Guides

Referencing: Avoiding Plagiarism

Introducing avoiding plagiarism

Avoiding plagiarism playlist - 4 videos, each around 2-3 minutes


To avoid plagiarism, you should reference when:

  • quoting from sources
  • paraphrasing sources
  • any other use of sources (except for 'common knowledge' or, in some circumstances, ephemera -see FAQs)
  • re-using work that you have previously submitted for assessment

You should also treat Generative AI as a source and acknowledge any use of it in your work, such as brainstorming ideas, developing a draft plan or structure, and translating text into another language.

Defining plagiarism

The Academic Integrity Policy for students defines plagiarism as:

"the use of ideas, intellectual property or work of others without acknowledgement or, where relevant, permission." 

There is a longer definition used in the Handbook of Academic Regulations (Part 3, Section 10, paragraphs 38 to 40), which includes a definition of self-plagiarism, part of which reads:

presents for assessment work which that student has previously submitted for assessment as part of the same or another module or course, or at another institution without citing that it was used previously

See also the Plagiarism page on the university's website.

Sanctions for plagiarism

If you plagiarise as a student, you may face sanctions outlined in the table of penalties reproduced in the Academic Integrity Policy – for students

You may get a warning and a lower mark in less serious cases. However, for more extensive plagiarism, you could automatically fail a module.

Turn-it-in

Turn-it-in is a tool used by the university to assist in the detection of plagiarism for work submitted via Blackboard. It will highlight the text it finds to be similar to text already found in its database, and there are options to exclude text in quotation marks or in a list of references or short bits of text. 

If you have access to the similarity report, you might find the student guide to Understanding the Turnitin similarity report useful.

Paraphrasing

Turnitin guide to paraphrasing

The list of penalties for plagiarism in the Academic Integrity Policy highlights ‘close paraphrasing’ where your words are too close to the source material, which can be a grey area. You can avoid ‘close paraphrasing’ by not paraphrasing directly from the text:

  1. read the source
  2. put it aside
  3. then paraphrase
  4. then provide a reference in the text etc

Close paraphrasing with a citation is included in the spectrum of plagiarism produced by Turn-it-in (it is number 10).

Avoiding Plagiarism Tutorial

There is an Avoiding Plagiarism tutorial available on Blackboard which takes about an hour to complete. Academic staff should contact LIDE to register for the module.

Turnitin also provides PowerPoint slides for a lesson on plagiarism.   

Plagiarism examples

Unattributed use of sources can undermine people's work and sometimes their careers.  This is highlighted in occasional press stories, such as these examples: