PDP 7 – Avoiding plagiarism

Plagiarism Plagiarism is the act of copying somebody else's work and presenting it as your own Examples of plagiarism are: –Copying the whole or substantial parts of a paper from a text without proper citation and references –Copying computer code or artefacts and passing them off as your own –Including parts of existing works where only a few words have been changed –Piecing together sections of existing works of others into a new whole –Submitting another student's work, with or without that student's knowledge –Submitting a paper written by someone else (e.g. an internet service, peer, relative) and passing it off as your own

The consequences of plagiarism First time –You will have to attend a plagiarism panel –Your mark may be capped at 40% –You may be awarded 0% for the work in which the plagiarism appears –You may be forced to redo the assessment Repeat –You may be forced to retake the module Persistent –You may lose your place on your programme of study

Plagiarism detection Birkbeck uses turnitin a state of the art plagiarism detection serviceturnitin turnitin shows the percentage of plagiarism in a report or essay, and the parts of the document that were plagiarised (students can also use the service) Tutors on the FdIT are experts in plagiarism detection in essays, reports and technical work (e.g. programming code, databases, XHTML, etc.) One or more students is caught plagiarising every year

Avoiding plagiarism There are several things you can do to avoid plagiarism. These include: –Record your source details –Learn how to paraphrase sections from other texts –Learn how to include quotations from other texts –Use citation in your writing –Include references for your citations

Record your source details Whenever you read a text or take notes from a text write down the full reference details of the text (e.g. title, author, date of publication, etc.) Keep a record of all the texts you read when researching your work: include all of these in your references, even if you do not actually use them in your report or essay This helps avoid accidental plagiarism (e.g. plagiarism which occurs because you forgot you had read something somewhere else)

Learn how to paraphrase sections from other texts Paraphrase means putting somebody else’s words into your own When you are paraphrasing you must change: –The grammar –The vocabulary (except for key words) –The overall structure of the text Your paraphrased text must be clearly different than the original It should not be significantly shorter than the original (This is summary writing) However, it must retain the meaning of the original All paraphrase included in your work must have an accompanying citation examples

How to paraphrase 1.Read (and re-read) the original passage until you are sure you understand the points it is making 2.Identify key and non-key vocabulary. 3.Change the non-key vocabulary using synonyms and equivalent phrases 4.Rewrite the passage changing the grammar and structure, and including your new vocabulary 5.Read your paraphrase, checking that you have retained the meaning from the original

Learn how to include quotations from other texts Sometimes you want to include the exact words of other writers in your document You should only do this where: –The words you are including are from an established expert in the field you are writing about –The words you are using serve to emphasise the point you are making –The passage you are including is not overly long A report or essay should include no more than 3-5% of quoted material All quotations included in your work must have an accompanying citation examples

Cite your sources clearly and accurately Both paraphrase and quotations need to have an accompanying citation Citations make it clear to the reader where you got your information from examples

Include references for your citations All citations should refer to a reference in the references section of your report or essay. This allows your tutors to check the work you are citing to see that you have understood it properly example

Further reading Plagiarism Paraphrase, quotation and citation

PDP 7 – Activities Now do: PDP 7 – Academic reading