All my own work? Plagiarism and how to avoid it

These extracts from the University of Brighton’s student guide supplement the UKCLE guide to plagiarism for law lecturers by Alison Bone (University of Brighton). Readers are invited to customise the guide by inserting extracts from their own university regulations where indicated.

The author acknowledges with thanks the contributions of Pauline Ridley, University of Brighton, to this guide.

All members of the academic community around the world, whatever our subject disciplines, are committed to the creation and discovery of knowledge and the free exchange of ideas. This ideal relies on a common understanding of the notion of academic honesty which, at its simplest, means never falsifying the results of any research and always giving full credit for any other peoples contributions to our own achievements.

Because it is so vital to safeguard academic integrity, you will need to observe a number of conventions in all your work from now on. The reasons for these will be obvious in most cases, but some rules and procedures may seem pointless or just different to what you have been used to. Nevertheless it is important to understand and follow them, to avoid unintentionally committing a serious academic offence for which the penalty may be failure or expulsion from the University.

Why does it matter?

Activity 1
Take some time to think about the implications of each of these situations and discuss them with other students:

• A medical researcher falsifies the results of a new anti-cancer drug to make his discovery seem more important.
• A writer submits an idea for a series to a television company, who turn it down. A few months later, they broadcast an almost identical programme. She never receives any acknowledgment or payment.
• A historian publishes a book claiming that the Holocaust never took place. He makes lots of detailed assertions backed up by anonymous quotations but does not give any sources for this information.
• A minority of students at a particular university are acquiring essays via the Internet, and the university authorities have failed to stop the practice. This has led to a decline in the universitys reputation and all their graduates (even genuinely first class students) are now finding it hard to get a job.
• A design student loses the portfolio containing all her sketches for her final project, and has to start again from scratch. At the final degree show, she finds that many of her original ideas have been used in another students work.

Clearly some of these situations have more immediately serious consequences than others, but they all threaten peoples lives or livelihoods and distort perceptions of the truth. In the long term, this affects us all.

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the word given to a particular kind of academic dishonesty – passing off someone elses work, ideas or words as your own. It can sometimes be unintentional, particularly when your previous educational experience may have actively encouraged an approach to coursework that centred on the compilation of material from outside sources. One definition of the term is given here:

“ Plagiarism may take the form of repeating anothers [words] as your own…or even presenting someone elses line of thinking…as though it were your own. In short, to plagiarise is to give the impression that you have written or thought something that you have in fact borrowed from another. Although a writer may use other peoples words and thoughts, they must be acknowledged as such.”
(Modern Languages Association (1977) Handbook for writers of research papers, theses and dissertations New York: MLA 5)

Of course, with the growth of the Internet it is not just printed works that can be used. At school many children are encouraged to cut and paste from webpages for their projects, but this in itself would be regarded as plagiarism in higher education if the webpages were not properly acknowledged and cited.

What about the copying of big chunks, using quotation marks and giving all of them accurate references and joining them up with a students own views? At this level of education, you are expected to develop your own voice and opinions, building on other peoples work rather than sheltering behind it. So this would be considered bad practice, but it is not plagiarism.

Plagiarism, whatever the source of the material or the intended outcome, is cheating and unacceptable. It is important to understand that intention does not have a role to play in the definition of plagiarism. Not meaning to do it, or not knowing you are doing it, is therefore not an excuse – and now that you have read this, you are aware of what it is.

Activity 2
Look at the following examples. Do they amount to plagiarism?

• Nazeem and Daniel work together on a piece of coursework and submit very similar answers, claiming in each case that it is their own work.
• Mary pays £100 for an outline for an essay from a commercial supplier and uses it as the basis of her own coursework.
• Su, a first year student, discovers discarded in the print room the copy of an answer done by a student who it would appear is studying a similar course. The ideas are so good that she uses them for her work they clearly cannot be improved upon. She does not know whose they are.

Activity 3
The examples below are based on an exercise in Academic writing for graduate students by Swales and Feale, University of Michigan, 1993, cited by Jude Carroll in an online article on plagiarism at http://www.ilt.ac.uk/resources/JCarroll.htm [accessed 1/5/03]. (Notice that when citing an Internet source you should give the URL – the Web address – and the date when you accessed the material, since this may change more rapidly than printed information.)

Here are six ways to use sources. Example 1 is plagiarism; example 6 is not. Where do you cross the line?

Copying a paragraph verbatim from a source without any acknowledgement.
Copying a paragraph and making small changes – for example replacing a few verbs, replacing an adjective with a synonym; acknowledgement in the bibliography.
Cutting and pasting a paragraph by using sentences of the original but omitting one or two and putting one or two in a different order, no quotation marks; with an in-text acknowledgement plus bibliography.
Composing a paragraph by taking short phrases from a number of sources and putting them together using words of your own to make a coherent whole with an in-text acknowledgement plus bibliography.
Paraphrasing a paragraph by rewriting with substantial changes in language and organisation; the new version will also have changes in the amount of detail used and the examples cited; citing in bibliography.
Quoting a paragraph by placing it in block format with the source cited in text and bibliography.

What are the penalties?

Activity 4

What is academic misconduct?
Do you know how the University deals with plagiarism?
How would you know if you had broken the rules?

(Dont check the answers overleaf until you’ve discussed your ideas with other people!)

[Extract from university regulations]

This doesn’t go away. In July 2002 the vice chancellor of one of the world’s top universities (Monash, in Australia) was forced to hand in his resignation after it was discovered he had plagiarised by copying from other authors without attribution in books published in 1979 and 1983.

How would you know if you had broken the rules?

[Extract from university regulations]

Further guidance and help

This guide is intended to give basic general information on the nature of plagiarism and its penalties. The lecturers on your course will give you further guidance on the proper referencing of published works and websites, and any other subject-specific conventions in your discipline.

There is also a wealth of advice available in the library and on the Internet to help you understand the principles of proper referencing and how to apply them. This extract reminds you why plagiarism matters:

Only use someone elses writing when you want to quote precisely what they wrote. If this is not your goal, USE YOUR OWN WORDS.

1. This avoids any ambiguity about who wrote it. After all, you do not want someone to accuse you of plagiarism.
2. You need to learn how to write in your own style. You may be influenced by authors that you find clear and easy to understand, but your writing needs to be YOUR writing. Mimicking someone else is not a productive exercise. You just learn to cut and paste.
3. An instructor who is reading or grading your work is interested in YOUR understanding of an idea. I am not interested in your ability to copy explanations from the textbook. I know that the author of the book understands it, which is why I picked the textbook. I need to know if YOU understand it.
4. Understanding and learning is more than just replaying something you have heard. Writing is a valuable exercise that tests your ability to explain a topic. I often think I understand something, until I try to write it out. This is an important part of learning

(Van Bramer SE (1995) What is plagiarism? Chester PA, USA: Widener University)

And finally, here is some reassurance:

Though plagiarism is a serious offence, if you are clear, careful and honest there should be no problem. Dont let the fear of plagiarism keep you from using to the full the amazing resources in other peoples writings. Learning how to make proper and responsible use of other peoples work in developing your own understanding of a subject is the heart of academic life. Reading good scholarly work should also give you useful examples and models of good practice and you should actively look out for ways in which these may help you improve your own writing.

A final word: if in doubt, ASK!

(Pyper H (2000) Avoiding plagiarism: advice for students Leeds: School of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Leeds)

Last Modified: 4 June 2010