The School of Biological\u00a0Sciences operates an electronic detection system for suspected cases of academic malpractice. Your work may be submitted to this system if an academic feels there is reason to believe you may have committed plagiarism in your work. You may be required to attend a formal meeting, the result of which could mean a mark of zero in the unit concerned.<\/strong><\/p>\nThese topics form an important part of the first stage of the Critical Writing Skills module (BIOL21701) but general guidelines and advice are given hereunder.<\/p>\n
Plagiarism is a serious offence – it is treated as seriously as cheating in exams.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n- As a student, you are expected to cooperate in the learning process throughout your programme of study by completing assignments of various kinds that are the product of your own<\/strong> study or research. Coursework, dissertations and essays submitted for assessment must be your own work, unless in the case of group projects a joint effort is expected and this has been indicated by the Unit Coordinator. For most students this does not present a problem, but occasionally, whether unwittingly or otherwise, a student may commit what is known as plagiarism, or some other form of academic malpractice, when carrying out an assignment. This may come about because students have been used to different conventions in their prior educational experience or through general ignorance of what is expected of them, or of what constitutes plagiarism.<\/li>\n
- This guidance is designed to help you understand what we regard as academic malpractice and hence to help you to avoid committing it. You should read it carefully, because academic malpractice is regarded as a serious offence and students found to have committed it will be penalized. At the very least a mark of only 30% would be awarded for the piece of work in question, but it could be worse; you could be awarded zero (with or without loss of credits), fail the whole unit, be demoted to a lower class of degree, or be excluded from the programme, depending on the severity of the case.Academic malpractice includes plagiarism, collusion, fabrication or falsification of results and anything else intended by those committing it to achieve credit that they do not properly deserve. Further guidance is available here: http:\/\/www.regulations.manchester.ac.uk\/guidance-to-students-on-plagiarism-and-other-forms-of-academic-malpractice\/ and online exercises are available on the ‘My Essentials’ pages:\u00a0https:\/\/www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk\/learning-objects\/mle\/avoiding-plagiarism\/. It is well worth visiting these sites in your spare time to ensure that you fully understand. \u00a0All students are required to confirm that they have read and agree to the University\u2019s declaration on Academic Malpractice as part of the online registration process.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The University uses electronic systems for the purposes of detecting plagiarism and other forms of academic malpractice and for marking. Such systems include TurnitinUK, the plagiarism detection service used by the University.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>As part of the formative and\/or summative assessment process, you may be asked to submit electronic versions of your work to TurnitinUK and\/or other electronic systems used by the University (this requirement may be in addition to a requirement to submit a paper copy of your work). If you are asked to do this, you must do so within the required timescales.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nThe School also reserves the right to submit work handed in by you for formative or summative assessment to TurnitinUK and\/or other electronic systems used by the University.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nPlease note that when work is submitted to the relevant electronic systems, it may be copied and then stored in a database to allow appropriate checks to be made.
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Different types of academic malpractice are explained over the next few pages![\"pen\"](\"https:\/\/handbooks.bmh.manchester.ac.uk\/sbs2018-19\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/Unknown-2.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/strong>Plagiarism<\/strong><\/p>\nPlagiarism is presenting the ideas, work or words of other people without proper, clear and unambiguous acknowledgement. The most obvious examples of plagiarism would be to copy another student\u2019s work, or to copy text from a book or website. Even if you acknowledge the source in a citation, you must put the ideas or concepts into your own words, unless you are using a
\ndirect quote (although over-reliance on quotes is poor practice). It also includes \u2018self-plagiarism\u2019 (which occurs where, for example, you submit work that you have presented for assessment on a previous occasion), and the submission of material from \u2018essay banks\u2019 (even if the authors of such material appear to be giving you permission to use it in this way). It is as serious to use material from the internet or from a computer based encyclopaedia or literature archive as it is to use material from a printed source.<\/p>\n
Paraphrasing, when the original statement is still identifiable and has no acknowledgement, is plagiarism. Taking a piece of text, from whatever source, and substituting words or phrases with other words or phrases is plagiarism. It is not acceptable to put together unacknowledged passages from the same or from different sources linking these together with a few words or sentences of your own and changing a few words from the original text; this is regarded as over-dependence on other sources, which is a form of plagiarism.<\/p>\n
It is essential to make clear in your assignments the distinction between the ideas and work of other people that you may have quite legitimately used and developed, and the ideas or material that you have personally contributed.<\/p>\n
To assist you, here are a few important do\u2019s and don\u2019ts:<\/p>\n
Do<\/strong> get lots of background information on subjects you are writing about to help you form your own view of the subject. The information could be from electronic journals, technical reports, unpublished dissertations, etc. Make a note of the source of every piece of information at the time you record it, even if it is just one sentence. Consider writing skeletal notes of your own rather than storing original text.<\/p>\nDon\u2019t<\/strong> construct a piece of work by cutting and pasting or copying material written by other people, or by you for any other purpose, into something you are submitting as your own work. Sometimes you may need to quote someone else\u2019s exact form of words in order to analyse or criticize them, in which case the quotation must be enclosed in quotation marks to show that it is a direct quote, and it must have the source properly acknowledged at that point. Any omissions from a quotation must be indicated by an ellipsis (\u2026) and any additions for clarity must be enclosed in square brackets, e.g. \u201c[These] results suggest\u2026 that the hypothesis is correct.\u201d It may also be appropriate to reproduce a diagram from someone else\u2019s work, but again the source must be explicitly and fully acknowledged there. However, constructing large chunks of documents from a string of quotes, even if they are acknowledged, is another form of plagiarism.<\/p>\nDo<\/strong> attribute all ideas to their original authors. Written \u2018ideas\u2019 are the product that authors produce. You would not appreciate it if other people passed off your ideas as their own, and that is what plagiarism rules are intended to prevent. A good rule of thumb is that each idea or statement that you write should be attributed to a source unless it is your personal idea or it is common knowledge. (If you are unsure if something is common knowledge, ask other students: if they don\u2019t know what you are talking about, then it is not common knowledge!)<\/p>\nAs you can see, it is most important that you understand what is expected of you when you prepare and produce assignments and that you always observe proper academic conventions for referencing and acknowledgement, whether working by yourself or as part of a team. In practice, there are a number of acceptable styles of referencing depending, for example, on the particular discipline you are studying, so if you are not certain what is appropriate, ask your Advisor or the course Unit Coordinator for advice. This should ensure that you do not lay yourself open to a charge of plagiarism inadvertently, or through ignorance of what is expected. It is also important to remember that you do not absolve yourself from a charge of plagiarism simply by including a reference to a source in a reference list that you have included with your assignment; you should always be scrupulous about indicating precisely where and to what extent you have made use of such a source.<\/p>\n
So far, plagiarism has been described as using the words or work of someone else (without proper attribution). However, it could also include a close paraphrase of their words, or a minimally adapted version of a computer program, a diagram, a graph, an illustration, etc., taken from a variety of sources without proper acknowledgement. These could be lectures, printed material, the Internet or other electronic\/AV sources.<\/p>\n
Remember:<\/strong> no matter what pressure you may be under to complete an assignment, you should never succumb to the temptation to take a \u2018short cut\u2019 and use someone else\u2019s material inappropriately. No amount of mitigating circumstances will get you off the hook, and if you persuade other students to let you copy their work, they will be disciplined as well.<\/p>\n
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