Avoiding Plagiarism and Collusion
Say NO to plagiarism & collusion! Say YES to Academic Integrity!
Avoiding plagiarism and collusion
Plagiarism and collusion are the two most common forms of academic misconduct. We know that some students find the concepts of plagiarism and collusion difficult. Others struggle with citation and referencing and may unintentionally break the rules.
While the University is responsible for making information and advice on plagiarism and collusion widely available to students, it is your responsibility to follow that advice and to develop good academic practice.
Download the leaflet below as a handy guide to avoiding plagiarism and collusion
More tips to avoid plagiarism:
- Follow the detailed referencing guidance set out in Cite Them Right.
- Check out 'Avoiding Plagiarism' section on the UEL Info Skills website
- Ensure that, when you make notes (from books, articles, web sites and other sources) you make a record of where you found the material (otherwise you might later mistakenly believe that the notes were of your own thoughts and so did not need to be referenced).
- Ensure that all direct quotations from your sources are set out in quotation marks and cited in the text of your work.
- Ensure that you provide within the text of your assessment, a citation for any material that you have paraphrased
- If you find a good quote that want to use in your work never cut and paste it directly into your assessment. Put into a separate Word document along with the URL and then you avoid accidently leaving it uncited in your work.
If you do plagiarise, you should note that:
- Lecturers and tutors generally find it easy to spot plagiarism, because they are experts in their fields and are familiar with much of the literature. They will also recognise work that has been cut and pasted into your work, because (usually) the language will be more sophisticated, the grammatical structure will change and it will look distinctly different from your work.
- Academic staff know that essays can be bought (they may even have seen the same bought essay more than once). Again, work that is not your own is usually readily identifiable as such.
- Your work may be submitted to Turnitin, which will identify matches between it and an extensive range of internet sources (and a database of previous student submissions).
- Our University never awards academic credit to plagiarised work and we deal robustly with all instances of academic misconduct. See our Academic Misconduct Regulations at: http://www.uel.ac.uk/qa/manual/documents/PART8-AcademicMisconductRegulations.doc
To avoid collusion:
- If the assessment is a piece of group work, ensure (by checking with your tutor/lecturer and course handbooks) that you understand what the rules are
- If the assessment is an individual piece of work, it is acceptable to discuss ideas and strategies with fellow students. However, never help a fellow student to produce work for an individual piece of assessment. Not only will you deprive them of the learning opportunity involved, you could also both be liable for collusion. All individual work must be the sole work of the individual concerned
- Likewise, never lend your work to a fellow student, even your best friend. It is your responsibility to ensure that no-one else copies your work and you can never be 100% sure that your friend will not be tempted to use your work
In General:
- Always give yourself time to check your work thoroughly (and, if you like, to submit a draft to Turnitin), before you submit it for assessment. Students who push deadlines to the limit run a significant risk of cutting corners and breaking the rules.
- Take a look at some of the many web-based resources offering advice on how to avoid plagiarism (a selection is offered at: Web Resources for Academic Integrity)
Useful Links
- Quality Assurance and Enhancement
- Learning and Development
- UEL Library & Learning Services
- External Organisations
- Moodle Docs
- Scholarship in Learning, Teaching and Assessment
