The University of SheffieldMasters Induction Programme

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A Guide to Academic Literacy: plagiarism and how to avoid it.

A Self-Directed Learning Package for attending students

Authors:

Dr Alan O’Rourke Mr Andrew BoothLecturer, Public Health, ScHARR

Reader, Health Economics and Decision Science (HEDS), ScHARR

School of Health & Related Research2010-11

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CONTENTS

Introduction 2

Why use the literature? 5

The current context for plagiarism 6

What is collusion? 7

What is self-plagiarism? 7

Researching an assignment 8

Good citation practice 8

Effective use of quotations 10

Some further examples of good practice 11

How can I avoid plagiarism? 113

Attitudes to the lterature and to athority 14

An eectronic dtection service 15

Self-assessment exercise 176

Penalties for plagiarism 18

Compulsory Practical Exercise 19How to registerwith Turnitin 21How to submit the compulsory practical exercise: 22

Important notes on the use of Turnitin 25

References: 27

Appendix A - Using Turnitin software for your assignments A

Appendix B Initial Declaration on Plagiarism and Collusion C

Appendix C - Coversheet for all assessed work D

Appendix D - Ue of unfair means in the assessment process plagiarism and collusion – advice to students E

Published by the School of Health and Related ResearchThe University of Sheffield

Regent Court, 30 Regent Street, Sheffield S1 4DA

Alan O’Rourke and Andrew BoothSchool of Health and Related Research, University of Sheffield Revised July 2010

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IntroductionWelcome to study at the University of Sheffield. Most of you will be looking forward to your course as a source of new skills and knowledge; a voyage of discovery about your own strengths and learning styles; and a gateway to career opportunities. Recently, however, many Universities have become aware that a very small minority of students see the learning process merely as a means of obtaining qualifications, as quickly and as easily as possible, even if this involves resorting to unfair means (See Appendix D). Students who use unfair means to gain an advantage over their fellow students aim to cheat the University, to cheat their tutors, to cheat their colleagues and to cheat their current and future employers. Above all they are cheating themselves!

Consider for a moment the following scenarios:1. A school teacher falsifies their CV in order to gain an

advantage when applying for a new job. The school is unaware of this deception and offers the applicant a job, preferring them over other, possibly better qualified, candidates.

2. A hospital porter who has always wanted to work in a clinical setting impersonates a junior doctor and becomes involved in the care of patients for several months.

3. A student at secondary school finds an “essay writing” service available over the Internet. For a fee they obtain essays for course assignments, which get them high marks.

4. A masters student at university, working under time pressures to complete an assignment, copies some sections of material word for word from a key textbook. They cut and paste other sections from websites. They receive a borderline pass and proceed to the second year of study.

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Point for Reflection:

For each of the above scenarios consider the following:

In what ways does this scenario demonstrate use of deception and unfair means to gain an advantage?

What are the potential short-term and long-term consequences of this deception?

Who is affected by this deception? You will need to think in the widest possible context to answer this question.

Record your brief points of reflection below:

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Scenario 3

Scenario 4

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Let us remind ourselves of Scenario 4:

“A masters student at university, working under time pressures to complete an assignment, copies some sections of material word for word from a key textbook. They cut and paste other sections from websites. They receive a borderline pass and proceed to the second year of study”.

This is an example of a particular type of deception called plagiarism, which is:“the stealing of ideas or work of another person (including experts and fellow or former students) and is considered dishonest and unprofessional. Plagiarism may take the form of cutting and pasting, taking or closely paraphrasing ideas, passages, sections, sentences, paragraphs, drawings, graphs and other graphical material from books, articles, internet sites or any other source and submitting them for assessment without appropriate acknowledgement.” (University of Sheffield, 2009).

Note that, as with many other forms of deception, plagiarism can be either intentional or unintentional, and includes ideas, compositions, designs, images, computer code, and, of course, words. The main purpose of this introductory course is to help you to pursue your studies in a fair and open manner to avoid unintentionally passing off others’ work as your own. In delivering this material, however, this course will meet a secondary, although equally important objective – it will make it very difficult for students who still resort to plagiarism to plead that they were unaware of what they were doing.

Like other Universities, Sheffield takes a very serious view on plagiarism.

“Any attempt by a student to gain unfair advantage over another student in the completion of an assessment, or to assist someone else to gain an unfair advantage, is cheating. Cheating undermines the standards of the University’s awards and disadvantages those students who have attempted to complete assessments honestly and fairly. It is an offence against the values of the academic community of which students and staff are both part……… The University has a public duty to ensure that the highest standards are maintained….to safeguard both the legitimate interests of its students and the University’s reputation.” (University of Sheffield, 2005)

All tutors are alert to plagiarism when marking. If they encounter a “suspicious” piece of written work they examine it

Plagiarism is passing off other peoples’ work as your own, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to your benefit (University of Sheffield, 2005).

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closely for plagiarism, by comparing to standard texts, or increasingly by using software specifically designed to detect plagiarised passages of text, from electronic sources, including websites. Below, we introduce you to one such tool, Turnitin. Some people refer to this software as “Submit.”

Why use the literature?The range of literature (textbooks, research papers and other scholarly literature) available to you is now substantial. However, in using it you must be careful to avoid plagiarism. At this point in the tutorial you may be asking – why bother using the literature at all if I run the risk of unwittingly plagiarising the work of other writers? There are two main reasons:

1. During your University career you are expected not only to demonstrate that you are capable of original thinking but also that you can critique and synthesise the work of others.

University assignments, especially at Master’s level, rarely ask you simply for your opinion on a question. More often, they ask you to review, appraise or synthesise the arguments of scholars and researchers in your field of study. This means that throughout your studies, you will be using the existing literature to develop and support arguments, or you may be required to critically analyse opinions, by discussing how they relate to published research. Even when you write up original data, you need to introduce it with a literature review, to place your data in the context of what is already known.

2. Skilled and appropriate use of the literature makes a valuable and important contribution to your own understanding of a topic and that of your readers.

Correct use of the literature, through accurate and appropriate citation, quotation and referencing will enable you to draw upon a substantial body of literature, both recent and extending, with Medicine, back to parts of the Hippocratic Corpus from the fifth century BC.

When preparing assignments, projects or other work, you will read widely and become familiar with the work of others. You need to ensure that the work you prepare is accepted as your own original work. When a tutor is assessing your work they are interested in both your knowledge and your understanding of an idea. It is important that you use your own words to demonstrate such understanding. You are permitted to quote selectively from books and articles.

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Citing/Citation: The act of referring to an original source, using a standardised method of acknowledging that source, and giving full bibliographic details of the source.

Quotation: Directly copying the words of another author, and indicating this with quotation marks around the text, or a change of font, and providing a reference. Quotations may come from literature, speeches, films, song lyrics or any other human dialogue.

Referencing: this is the other side of citation and refers to the standard method of acknowledging the source of your information by providing a full bibliographic reference, such that anyone reading your account could go and check that source if they wished.

See:%20Explorer/

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However you must always give credit for any material that you have used word for word from a source, by means of quotation marks. In assessed assignments, the author’s name plus the date of publication is usually placed in brackets each time that the author’s ideas (citation) or actual words (quotation, which should also include a specific page or paragraph for the words quoted) are used. You also need to provide a bibliography that provides full references of all material that you have used.

This tutorial provides useful hints on how to use the literature and how to avoid committing plagiarism when writing your assignments. It also includes a short compulsory practical exercise, which you should complete and submit before handing in your first course assignment for marking.

The current context for plagiarismHigh profile cases of “plagiarism” typically relate to fictional works, where large fees for royalties and film rights are at stake, as with The Da Vinci Code. Much more serious is academic plagiarism.

Plagiarism is dishonest for several reasons:

It does not recognise the contribution of the original author

It does not acknowledge the source of your ideas It makes unjust claims to original thinking and writing It attempts to gain an unfair advantage over other

students, who complete assignments honestly and fairly according to University regulations.

In apparently demonstrating mastery of the arguments proposed by other authors, you are laying claim to skills that you do not possess.

Plagiarism is an increasing problem for academic institutions and employing organisations. With large blocks of electronic text freely available on the internet and from e-journals, it has become easy to “cut and paste” an assignment together very quickly. Students may unwisely choose to search for topics in general search engines or database indices, and lift text from retrieved documents. This is a gross form of plagiarism. Since you are not reading or reflecting on the articles you find to develop your own ideas, you are not gaining the skills that the assignment is designed to teach.

What is collusion?Collusion occurs when two or more people work together to produce a piece of work, all or part of which is then submitted

Collusion occurs when two or more people work together to produce a piece of work, all or part of which is then submitted by each member of the group as their own individual effort (University of Sheffield, 2005).

Academic staff are available to give clear guidance to students on limits of collaboration for group work.

Pages provide examples of guidance for the two main styles of referencing (Harvard – author/date and Vancouver – numeric) plus a guide to citing electronic sources. http://www.shef.ac.uk/library/useful/refs.html

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by each member of the group as their own individual effort (University of Sheffield, 2005). Examples include handing in a piece of written work as your own, but where you “copied” the material from another student on your course, or from an assignment submitted by another student taking that course in a previous year. Collusion also includes where two or more students jointly write an assignment which is set and assessed as individual work, and the two students then hand in identical or very similar versions, but each presents the written piece as “my own work.” On some courses, we require you to do “groupwork” and learn skills like delegation and co-operation. In these cases, final reports may include ideas developed jointly by the group members, but unless the group notifies us to the contrary, we will assume that all group members have contributed equally. If you have any doubts about how to write up and present assessed group work, please discuss it with the tutor setting that assignment.

It is often useful to discuss how you tackle assignments with other students. We hope that you will learn from each other as well as from the course tutors, and we encourage the healthy exchange of ideas and academic debate among our students, during, and between, formal teaching sessions. However, when you come to write an assignments which is set as an individual piece of work, what you hand in must be “all your own work.” Again, if course tutors suspect collusion, they will compare scripts, and where copying becomes apparent, both students will be called in to explain the “similarities” between their assignments.

Collusion, collaboration and group workJust to clarify:

GROUP WORK On some modules, the tutor may ask you to work in a small group, typically three or four students to analyse a problem and produce a written report or a short presentation. Unless we hear differently from the group, we will assume that all members have contributed equally and will receive an equal share of the mark.

INDIVIDUAL WORK We do recognise that the students on most courses, with their wide variety of experience, expertise and knowledge, are an important learning resource. We hope that you will learn from each other, as well as from lecturers, tutorials etc, and that you will discuss your work and ideas between classes.

HOWEVER: when it comes to writing an assignment which is set as an individual piece of work, you MUST write it yourself.

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Use your Student Handbook!It contains: Sections on

referencing and citation

Guidance on how to lay out different sorts of references

Sections on plagiarism and collusion

If you do not understand something in the handbook about citation, referencing, plagiarism or collusion you must discuss it with one of

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Please do not share text or assignment preparation materials among yourselves for written work: the temptation for this to "slip" into assignments is just too great, and if it does, it is highly likely that your work will be penalised and that you will cause unnecessary distress to fellow students.

What is self-plagiarism?Although it may appear strange, it is possible to plagiarise your own work! This occurs if students use material submitted for one assignment in a later piece of assessed work. It is, of course, possible that materials and sources you use for one programme of study or module will be relevant for a later piece of written work, and it is quite proper for you to look up those citations and any notes you made previously. However, what you hand in for the later assignment should still be an original piece of work and not a “cut and paste” from your former assignment. You cannot receive two sets of marks for the same piece of work!

Researching an assignmentYou have access to a considerable range of literature when preparing an assignment. In addition to the more traditional format of textbooks and academic journals, in the last ten years, novel electronic forms, such as the internet and e-journals have arrived on the scene. For recent events, you may also wish to use better quality newspapers, such as The Guardian and The Independent. Use and citation of web-pages is now perfectly acceptable. Indeed web pages are often the prime source of information about new developments from government bodies, such as the Department of Health, or professional organisations like the General Medical Council. However, when using “factual” material from a website, you must try to evaluate their content and think carefully about who is responsible for the website and whether they are trying to promote a biased viewpoint.

This tutorial provides examples of correct citation and quotation, leading to a short compulsory practical exercise to help you avoid writing plagiarised text.

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Good citation practice In many assignments you need to develop an argument to answer a question. It is not sufficient to support your reasoning with “in my opinion” or “the popular view is”. You will usually bring in information from published sources. You should think critically about such material, and not accept everything that is published as “the Truth”. Even experts differ in their opinions on questions like:

What are the best antibiotics to use in treating community pneumonia?

Is “payment by results” likely to produce a more efficient National Health Service?

While we do not expect you to provide conclusive answers to such questions, you will need to consider different, and possibly even contradictory, views. In some cases you may find that two conflicting articles quote rigorous original data to support their claims. You will need to evaluate and critically appraise these various views, and use them to write a reasoned argument. You may conclude that there is, indeed, no overall agreement, or that there is conflicting evidence, and “more research is needed”!

However, you need to make it clear how you identified and collected together your ideas and evidence. You do this by using citations in the text. Each citation must have a full reference at the end of your assignment. This reference must be detailed enough to allow whoever is marking your assignment to go to find the source if they wish to. There are two main ways to organise citations and references: if you read the British Medical Journal, you will notice it uses a system of numbers in the text (the Vancouver referencing system). This system does have one disadvantage: if you add a new reference or change the order of your text, you need to renumber all the references! Most ScHARR courses use the Harvard system, where the citation in the text of your assignment includes the author and the date, with all references in alphabetical order at the end.

The following examples describe situations where you should use a citation to acknowledge your sources:

1. You may use a citation to summarise the overall argument of a paper or even a book, where you do not need to invoke great detail:

In addition to the widely known links between lifestyle and heart disease, some authors have developed theories about the

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impact of poor nutrition in the womb on later adult cardio-vascular health (Barker, 1995).

2. You may wish to provide a source for a specific concept or idea:

We have known for many years that cigarette smoking is an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease, and analysis of subjects in the Framingham study, suggests that this may be due to the higher levels of plasma fibrinogen found in current, but not ex-smokers (Kannel et al., 1987).

3. You may wish to contrast two or more interpretations of primary data, a natural phenomenon or a social trend:

There has recently been a debate about the widespread use of low dose aspirin, except in those with a history of drug allergy or gastro-intestinal bleeding, as a preventative strategy in cardiovascular disease. Some authors feel that because of the problems of screening the whole population for risk factors, and based on current risk-benefit analyses, there is good evidence for offering all people aspirin therapy from about the age of fifty years (Elwood et al., 2005). But others argue that the data is inconclusive (and in fact completely lacking for those over 70), and that aspirin use should be targeted at those with other risk factors for vascular disease, rather than given as “blanket therapy” (Baigent, 2005).

4. You may wish to cite specific figures to support an argument you are developing, such as five year survival rates for cancer, or incidence rates for infectious diseases:

Although incidence of tuberculosis in England and Wales as a whole runs at about 10.9 per 100,000 population, in inner city areas with many immigrants, it may be much higher: in Leicester city, the 1998 notification rates were 152 per 100,000 (Watson and Moss, 2001).

Effective use of quotationsCitations link ideas expressed in your own words with the sources from which you have developed those ideas. In some places, however, you may wish to include small blocks of text verbatim (that is, word for word), from a source into your assignment, keeping the author’s exact original language. Such direct quotations can be very useful, but should be used judiciously and sparingly: only a small part of your assignment, and certainly not more that 10% of the word count, should come in such form. Only a few limited situations (e.g. Statute Law) justify more extensive verbatim quotation. Generally, the citation for a quotation should be more precise than for a summary, and must include either a page or paragraph number from the original source.

Examples where you might legitimately use a direct quotation are:

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1. Where you wish to use an official definition, to clarify exactly what you mean by a technical term:

The original working definition for Clinical Governance was:

A framework through which NHS organisations are accountable for continuously improving the quality of their services and safeguarding high standards of care by creating an environment in which excellence in clinical care will flourish. (Dept of Health, 1998, p.33)

2. Where you wish to use a short section from a classical or landmark paper, now regarded as a pivotal publication in the evolution of a concept:

Evidence based medicine is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. The practice of evidence based medicine means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence. (Sackett at al., 1996 p. 71)

3. Where you wish to preserve the wit or humour of the original prose, where re-wording would destroy these, such as the following comment by the American satirist and journalist HL Mencken:

The aim of medicine is surely not to make men virtuous: it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices (Mencken, in: Daintith and Isaacs, 1990, p.128).

4. Where you wish to use direct quotations to illustrate the diversity of views on a particular subject, and then go on to compare and critique such extremes:

In terms of quality, building up clinician-patient relationships, continuity of care is widely regarded as good practice, but to front line doctors:continuity of care in general practice is a dying concept, while for consultants in hospital it has probably not existed for some time (Bulstrode, 1995, p.1144).

Note that in all these cases, the quotation makes it clear which words come directly from the original source by indenting them and using italic font. For shorter phrases, you could also place the quotation in inverted commas:

An alternative to the evidence-based medicine school of thought is the concept of giving patients a greater voice, through the practice of “narrative-based medicine” (Greenhalgh and Hurwitz 1999, p.48)

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Some further examples of “good practice”Consider the following passage:

Following the change of government in 1997, it became clear that the internal market prevented the health service from properly focussing on the needs of patients; it wasted resources administering competition between hospitals; and a new document proposed how the internal market could be replaced by a new system called “integrated care” based on partnership, and driven by performance.

This may well generate red ink from a marker, who may object to such biased views, want to know what this “new document is,” or if they are familiar with it, underline part of this passage as very close to plagiarism On the other hand, consider the same argument presented in this way:

In 1997, the incoming New Labour Government accepted that there was little evidence that the internal market was improving the quality of healthcare. In December of that year, the Department of Health published its new policy, stating that:

The introduction of the internal market by the previous government prevented the health service from properly focussing on the needs of patients. It wasted resources administering competition between hospitals. This white paper sets out how the internal market will be replaced by a system we have called “integrated care” based on partnership, and driven by performance.(Department of Health, 1997, section 1.3)

And with the following in the reference list:

Department of Health (1997) The New NHS: Modern – Dependable London: the Stationery Office.

The second version is much better because it substantiates the criticism of the internal market; it identifies the document to which the author is referring and it makes it very clear where the author is selectively using a direct quote to support the argument.

Another example:

Unfortunately, with new medical technologies, the cost of running the NHS rose rather than fell in the 1950s. Bevan resigned over the introduction of prescription charges in his own service, but no political party would survive that attempted to destroy the NHS. Despite

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changes of government, its funding continued to rise as a proportion of the Gross Domestic Product.

Again, this passage contains some sweeping claims and a hidden quote, and will be improved by proper citations:

Unfortunately, with new medical technologies, the cost of running the NHS rose rather than fell in the 1950s (Le Fanu, 1999). Bevan resigned over the introduction of prescription charges in “my health service” (Portillo, 1998, p.1411), but he astutely summed up the importance of the NHS:

No political party would survive that tried to destroy it (Bevan, 1952, p. 115)

In the following years, even though the governments changed, NHS funding rose as a proportion of the Gross Domestic Product (Klein, 1989).

With the following references provided:

Bevan A (1952) In place of fear London: McGibbon & Kee

Klein R (1989) The Politics of the NHS London: Longman 2nd edition

Le Fanu J (1999) The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine London: Abacus

Portillo M (1998) Something to celebrate: the Bevan Legacy British Medical Journal 332:1411

And finally:

The Private Finance Initiative is a great danger to the NHS’s financial future, and Payment by Results may threaten the stability of the current partnerships between primary and secondary care, creating both losers and gainers in terms of resources.

This would sound very like political party rhetoric, unless supported by appropriate sources:

Independent analysts have produced coherent arguments against the Private Finance Initiative on economic rather than ideological grounds (Gaffney et al., 1999) and Payment by Results (PbR) may threaten the stability of the current partnerships between primary and secondary care as even recognised by the government:

PbR represents a significant change in the NHS’s financial flows. Transition to this new financial system will put some providers and commissioners under financial pressure and leave others with additional resources to

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spend in the interests of patients and the public (Department of Health, 2006, p. 4)

Drawing support from:

Department of Health (2006) Chief Executive’s Report to the NHS: statistical summary London: Department of Health

Gaffney D, Pollock A, Price D, Shaoul J (1999) The Private Finance Initiative: PFI in the NHS is there an economic case? British Medical Journal 319: 116-9

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How can I avoid plagiarism?The best way to avoid plagiarism is to make sure that you use appropriate, thorough and systematic citation and referencing. Follow the steps below:

When proof-reading any work you are about to hand in:

1. Check that all statements, claims and facts which need a citation have got one in the text.

2. Now check that each citation links to a reference in the list at the end of your work.

3. Delete any references which you came across when reading around the topic but which you have not subsequently used. Before doing this, do ask yourself “Would this piece of work be stronger if I include some citations from this reference source?”

Note: In some cases you may specifically be asked to list any references that you have read while preparing an assignment in a “Bibliography,” “List of Works Consulted”, “Further reading” or something similar at the end of your work. However in academic work it is typically the references of all your citations that matters. It is not sufficient to list everything in a “catch-all” bibliography and then to expect the tutor marking it to judge which ones you have used and which ideas are your own.

Attitudes to the literature and to authoritySome University students may come from a background or culture (or, indeed, from an organisation, profession or environment) where it is considered disrespectful to question the authority of elders or the writings of others. Indeed this was historically the case among Western scholars. Since the Renaissance it has become much more acceptable to adopt a questioning approach to the literature. Claims that are inconsistent, irrational or in direct conflict with new evidence or empirical data must be examined critically, irrespective of the historical importance of the authors. Ideas which are found wanting give place to theories which fit the evidence better. These new theories are themselves then subjected to criticism and scrutiny.

Modern students show respect to the writings and ideas of others by acknowledging their existence. This does not mean that you should be scared to question and critique them where they seem wanting, contradictory or lack rigour. Neither should you be shy of rewriting concepts from published

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To paraphrase a statement is to restate it using different words and/or grammar while keeping the same meaning.

statement at the same level of language or at a different level, e.g. make the sentence harder or easier than the original. This requires a solid understanding of the concepts and a good range of vocabulary. www.onip.ca/article/44/

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accounts in your own words (paraphrasing) to show that you fully understand those concepts and can analyse and apply them.

An electronic detection serviceIn the past academic staff detected plagiarism from changes of style, their familiarity with standard texts and analysing references and citations. More recently, they have looked for the original text by typing suspect phrases into search engines. But, all such methods are time consuming and of limited accuracy. The University now provides departments with access to the JISC Plagiarism Detection Service, online software which enables staff to carry out an electronic comparison of assignments against electronic sources, including other students’ work. The service is based on ‘turnitin.com’ developed and supplied by the US company iParadigms. It compares your work against a database of previously submitted material, over 800 million web sites and assignments from a significant number of ‘cheat’ sites.

The comparison results in an originality report, returned within 24 hours, which highlights text within the assignment that the software has found at another source, and provides links to this source. It remains a matter of academic judgement as to whether or not plagiarism has taken place.

Further informationFurther information can be obtained from the JISC Plagiarism Advisory ServiceBased in Newcastle:http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/services/pas.aspx

See also: Sheffield University guidance on the Use of Unfair Means in the assessment processhttp://www.shef.ac.uk/lets/design/unfair

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Self-Assessment Exercise: Check Your Own Understanding

Based on your reading of the above which of the following is an instance of plagiarism:

A. A student submits a piece of work copied from another source.B. A student produces a piece of work which includes sections taken from other authorsC. A student paraphrases from another source without giving the appropriate credit to the author of that source D. A student copies from her own previous work for another assignment

Record your answer below:

Your Answer A only

B only

C only

D only

A & D

B & C

B, C, D

A, B, C

A,B,C,D

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How Did You Do?

The answer is A,B,C,D. (i.e. all of the examples are plagiarism.

A. If a student submits a piece of work produced by others, or copied from another source, this is plagiarism.

B. If a student produces a piece of work which includes sections taken from other authors, this is plagiarism, unless the source has been given credit as outlined above. The length of the copied section is not relevant, since any act of plagiarism offends against the basic principle underlying the preparation of any piece of academic work, that the work submitted must be your own original work. When copying sections from other authors it is not sufficient simply to list the source in the bibliography.

C. If a student paraphrases from another source without giving appropriate credit to the author of that source, this is plagiarism. Paraphrasing should use a student’s own words to demonstrate an understanding and accurately convey the meaning of the original work, and should not merely reorder or change a few words or phrases of the existing text.

D. If a student copies from, or resubmits, his or her own previous work for another assignment, this is self-plagiarism, and is not acceptable.

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Penalties for Plagiarism

If an assignment that you write as part of the assessed work for your degree, when checked by the tutor manually or using Turnitin software, appears to contain plagiarised work, the tutor marking it will refer it to the Programme’s examination officer or course director and you will be required to attend a meeting to explore the matter further. At this meeting, you will have an opportunity either to explain that the charge of plagiarism is not warranted, or to acknowledge the plagiarism or collusion. If you have plagiarised, we strongly advise to admit this and not to add dishonesty to your misdemeanours.

ScHARR takes plagiarism very seriously, and normally we will refer all cases to the University’s Student Discipline Committee. At present, it is University of Sheffield policy that “penalties imposed for such academic offences should result in students’ assessment outcome being less favourable than if they had not committed the offence”. Such discipline committees have discretion to apply a range of penalties, including:

awarding a mark based on the work handed in after all passages suspected of plagiarism have been stripped out.

requiring the student to re-submit work and capping their overall mark for that unit at a bare pass (40% for undergraduate work; 50% for masters courses).

awarding a zero mark for the assignment meaning the unit cannot contribute to your degree.

exclusion from the programme of study resulting in refusal of the final qualification

With such a range of penalties it is clear that in addition to being dishonest, it is actually unwise for you to take calculated risks in trying to gain marks by employing unfair means in assessments, such as plagiarism or collusion. It is far better, both in terms of personal integrity and common sense, to make sure that your work is free of all plagiarised texts. The University is moving towards the use of electronic mechanisms like Turnitin to review student written work and you should follow any instructions you receive while a student at Sheffield about checking your written work through Turnitin before handing it in for marking.

How to Avoid a Charge of PlagiarismWe have adopted a policy that will ensure you never get penalised for plagiarism if you follow it.1. Complete this tutorial and make sure you understand

plagiarism and how to avoid it. You will have to sign

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the declaration that you have completed this tutorial successfully

2. To enable you to check your work, to ensure you do not unintentionally plagiarise, we have adopted the Turnitin software. You will be able to access this software and check your assignment before you hand it in.

Compulsory Practical ExerciseWe require all new students to complete a short test exercise in the use of Turnitin. The deadline for completion of this exercise and return of a signed declaration about fully understanding plagiarism and collusion (Appendix B towards the end of this tutorial) is: Friday November 12th, 2010.

If you feel that for any reason you should be exempted from this exercise (e.g. you already have extensive experience of teaching about plagiarism), you should still complete and return the declaration, and you may apply to ScHARR’s Director of Teaching. If the Director of Teaching is unwilling to grant such an exemption, you must complete the test exercise by November 12th, 2010.

Before starting this compulsory practical exercise you should note the following:

(1) For the purposes of this exercise we have set the threshold for plagiarism at a very “forgiving” level of 24% or less. This is because this is a formative exercise to enable you to review your skills and amend your writing practice accordingly.

For your actual assignments you will need to review any work that approaches a rating of 24% with considerable caution. It is unlikely that such work will be sufficiently free from plagiarism Remember: your work will also be read closely by the module tutor who will similarly be looking for plagiarism. Although for the test assignment, you only need to produce writing which scores 24% or lower for text matching, for assignments which will attract a summative mark, tutors may treat any work with over 10% of its text matching other sources as suspicious.

(2) The following instructions are for the test exercise. For handing in coursework, the procedure will be slightly different (see also Appendix A):

The classroom for the test exercise has been set up for ALL ScHARR students. The contact for this exercise is Alan O’Rourke a.j.orourke@sheffield.ac.uk

Deadline for completion of the Compulsory Practical Exercise is: Friday November 12th, 2010.

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Your individual module conveners will set up classrooms for the coursework for each module, and will provide students on each course with password details to access those classrooms. You should direct all queries regarding the use of these classrooms and Turnitin for course assignments and deadlines to the module tutor for that particular module or to the appropriate Programme Administrator.

The following compulsory short practical exercise in writing a summary of two items from the scientific literature, allows you to check your skills in using the literature appropriately for academic assignments.

Use the following two paired journal articles, which discuss arguments about the rôle of physical activity and other methods of tacking obesity at a population level. Both of these are available on-line full text from the British Medical Journal website at the URLs quoted in the references:

Weiler R, Stamatakis E, Blair S (2010)Should health policy focus on physical activity rather than obesity? YesBritish Medical Journal 340: 1170-1http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/may25_1/c2603

Gill T, Baur, L King L (2010)Should health policy focus on physical activity rather than obesity? NoBritish Medical Journal 340: 1170-1http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/340/may25_1/c2602

The full text of both these articles should be freely available to you via MUSE, the preferred portal which you should use to access the University of Sheffield web-pages. If you are registered with MUSE, you should have no problem viewing these pages. If you are not registered with MUSE, it is in your own interest to make sure that you are, in view of the wealth of material it will provide you with. In case of any problems using MUSE, please contact your course administrator.

For this exercise:1. Read both sources

2. Write a short (about 800 words) assignment summarising the arguments these authors make for the relative importance of promoting physical activity and other methods of tacking obesity in improving population health. Conclude by explaining to what extent you agree with the arguments each of these papers puts forward.

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If you wish to bring in ideas from other sources, you can, but you are not required to search out any further information or references for this test exercise.

3. Proof read your report carefully to make sure that it does not contain plagiarised text. You may use direct quotations, but make sure that your report makes it clear where text is being quoted (by using quotation marks, italic script and paragraph indentation), and that such quotations do not make up more than 24% of your final version.

4. Access the Turnitin software to check your final version for plagiarism. We have set up a single classroom for all ScHARR masters level students for this exercise. Details of how to register with Turnitin and join this classroom follow. If you have problems joining this classroom, you should e-mail A.J.Orourke@sheffield.ac.uk for advice.

How to register with Turnitin

1. Go to http://www.submit.ac.uk

2. Click on “new user”

3. Click on “ENROL AS A STUDENT”

4. Proceed to the next page using click here

5. Using the “create new account” option, select “student”

6. The ID for the classroom you need for the compulsory practical exercise on plagiarism is:Class ID: 18895Password (case sensitive): pare1510

7. You will also need to enter your first and last name and e-mail address, which will be your Turnitin user name. You should NOT enter your actual names here because you should submit your assignment anonymously. Therefore, under “first name”, enter your student registration number, and under “last name” you should enter “[name of your course]”e.g. your first name: 1459328

your last name: Psychotherapy Studies

NB: If you need to change the “name” you have created in your initial registration, you can edit the identity you have created for yourself as follows:

Log on to Turnitin

Click the "use info" tab towards the top of the page.

Instructions for ScHARR students to register for Turnitin

If you have any difficulty, you will find a student user guide to Turnitin at:

http://submit.ac.uk/usage_jisc/tiiuk_student_guide.pdf

and a set of FAQs with answers about the test essay and the use of Turnitin at:

http://www.shef.ac.uk/scharr/current/plagiarism/index.html

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If you have your password and security question  / answer to hand, you can then edit your settings.

Make sure you use the same e-mail address each time! For consistency, it will be best if you use your University allocated e-mail, rather than any other work or home e-mail addresses you may have, to register on Turnitin. It is also very important that you only create one Turnitin identity for all classrooms on your current programme of study. If you create more than one identity , using other e-mail addresses which you have, Turnitin will regard each one as a separate student. So, if you send in the same assignment from two different registrations, it will text match the two as independent assignments. This may make your work look like collusion with another student. If you need to submit several versions of each assignment before you arrive at a final draft, please submit all using the same registration, and make use of the revision slots in the classroom. So, please only create and use one Turnitin account.

8 Scroll down for the creation of a Turnitin password and security question. Please keep in mind that your password is case sensitive (paSS123 is different from pass123), must be 6-12 characters long, and contain at least one letter and one number (for added security). You will then be asked to enter a secret question and answer combination in case you should ever forget your password and need to reset it.

Please ensure that you have a copy of all your username and password details, and keep them safe somewhere.

Finally, you will be asked to agree with the user agreement. You can then click on end wizard and log in

12. If you want to edit the identity you have created for your Turnitin registration (name, e-mail or password), log into your account and then click on the 'User Info' tab.  You can then update the relevant fields and click on 'submit'.

How to submit the compulsory practical exercise:

1. Go to http://www.submit.ac.uk

2. Enter your e-mail and password

3. Click “Sign in.”

4. Click the class name ScHARR Students. Turnitin only allows one attempt at each paper for each student to each assignment slot, so your tutor has created a number of “assignments” in each classroom. For your first attempt,

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submit your assignment to draft 1. If the originality report on it is satisfactory (i.e. shows below 24% text matching), you can hand this in as your final version. If you need to revise it, use Revision 1 etc for your first revision and so on, until you get a suitable version which you can hand in. The revision slots are specifically configured so they do not try and text match what you send in with any texts you have previously send that classroom. So, the revision slots allow you to send in later drafts of the same piece of work, without the Turnitin software matching the text with your earlier drafts.

5. For the appropriate assignment from the assignment list, use the submit option and then browse your computer files to find the assignment you need to submit. Select the assignment, give it a suitable title e.g. test essay.

6. Click upload

7. The system will preview the paper, so you can make sure it is the one you really want to submit. Assuming that it is, click submit

8. Turnitin generates a paper ID number and electronic receipt for your work.

9. The Turnitin software generates a report (the Originality Report) on how much of the text appears to be matched with other sources (this may take a few hours to produce, and you may need to log out and come back to Turnitin later).

10. If you use the My classes button, and select the right classroom, you can see how Turnitin has analysed your work for matched text.

11. If you click on the percentage score under contents, you can review the text of your assignment, including which sections Turnitin has matched from other sources. You can use the print option to run of a copy of this analysis.

If this is above 24%, you should review your assignment carefully and examine those passages or phrases which Turnitin has matched to other sources. Sometimes Turnitin will identify correctly laid out quotations, references and other original text as being “matched” somewhere else. You can then send in the next draft using the “revision2” slot.

You should aim for a final version of your test assignment where Turnitin shows 24% or less as matched. If Turnitin scores your assignment above 24% but you have checked and it is not plagiarised, you will need to add a cover note to the material you hand in to the course administrator, using the box on Appendix C. If you have difficulty drafting a test assignment which does not contain plagiarised text, you must ask for advice from A.J.Orourke@sheffield.ac.uk.

For any outstanding difficulties with completing the practical exercise you should contact A.J.Orourke @sheffield.ac.uk.

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12. Once you have a test assignment which you are confident does not contain plagiarised text, you can print off the Turnitin originality report. Since this includes the text of your assignment you do not need to provide another copy of your test essay. Send a copy of the originality report to your course administrator with the declaration about understanding plagiarism (see below). Use the “printer” icon in the upper right-hand corner of the originality report screen to see a preview, and on the preview, click the “print” link. (NB: if you are a distance learning students, we may make provision for you to return these materials electronically, but if you are an attending student, you should send hard copies back to your course administrator).

You must also sign the form in Appendix B in this tutorial to confirm that you are familiar with the regulations about plagiarism and collusion, and that you understand how to write assignments that are free of plagiarism. Please note that completing Appendix B is not just a “tick-box” exercise: you should not complete it until you are clear about what constitutes plagiarism, how to avoid it in your writing and the consequences of submitting plagiarised work. Once again, if you have any doubts, you must resolve these with a course tutor before you complete Appendix B.

In summary, you should hand in to your course administrator: The Originality Report from the Turnitin software for

your test assignment The completed Appendix B declaration

Unlike assessed coursework, we will not be providing written feedback on this exercise, but if there as anything in your assignment which does cause us concern about your writing or referencing styles, we may contact you about this, or ask you to seek advice from your module or personal tutor.

Should I include references in the material I put through Turnitin?From practical point of view, it does not matter much: if you put the reference list through Turnitin, it usually shows as matched text, because the references will usually have appeared in a bibliography somewhere. Most markers will be more concerned about the overall text matching, or large blocks of text in the main body of your essay which show up as matched, but are not marked as direct quotes. It is possible that a very large reference list would push your text matching score over the 24% recommended cut off, but that the main body of your essay would be fine, in which case you can indicate this

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on the hand in cover sheet you sign to say that the work is not plagiarised.

The main thing is to make sure that the version you hand in for marking if accurately cited and has a full reference list, so I suppose it might be better to put the whole text including reference through Turnitin, rather than have two versions of your essay (with  / without reference) and accidentally hand in the wrong one.

Important notes on the use of Turnitin classrooms for submitting assignments

ScHARR has now made the use of Turnitin compulsory. This means that for any written assignment where the module convener or course administrator provides you with details of a Turnitin classroom for that piece of work, you must put a draft of your work through Turnitin and if necessary in the light of the originality report, revise it. In planning your work, you should realistically allow for one cycle of revision and re-submission to Turnitin before you have a final version to hand in: you will not be granted extensions on hand in deadlines simply because you need extra time for Turnitin checking. If you do not use a Turnitin classroom where one is provided, that piece of work may be returned to you as a fail. You may of course submit that piece again in the re-sit period, but your mark will then be capped as a bare pass, and if you chose not to use the Turnitin classroom in the re-sit period, your work may fail, which may have implications for you in terms of progressing to the next year of study or gaining a qualification Where you are provided with a Turnitin classroom for a specific piece of written work, you must use that classroom to generate an originality report. With your work and the declaration that it is not plagiarised (appendix C ), you should also hand in a print-off of the FIRST PAGE of the originality report (not the whole originality report) which will include your overall text matching score.

If whatever you do, you cannot get below the 24% target, you need to complete the box on the Appendix C form explaining why the assignment does not pass the test.

For any outstanding difficulties with registering with and using Turnitin you should contact your module tutor or programme administrator.

Please DO NOT allow your friends on other courses to use your registration to "test" assignments in ScHARR Turnitin classrooms. This may cause problems for us in using the system, and if their course tutors later use Turnitin to check these assignments, your friends may also find that their

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assignments show high text matching with assignments submitted on your registration, arousing suspicions of collusion. Although we can delete any such assignments from our classrooms, they will remain part of the main Turnitin database, and will be used in scanning any assignments sent in via any Turnitin classrooms indefinitely.

There may be a delay (up to twenty-four hours if logging in from outside Sheffield), between submitting your draft and being able to view the Turnitin originality report. If because of high text matching, or other concerns about plagiarism, you need to revise your draft, there may be a similar delay between submitting your revised draft and being able to check the Turnitin analysis. Hand-in deadlines will be for you submitting a final version after any checking on Turnitin, and when planning your workload, you must take into account the time needed for using Turnitin software. You will not automatically get extensions or escape any penalties for late hand in, if your only excuse is that you were awaiting a Turnitin report.

As far as possible, you should create only ONE Turmitin registration, ideally using your Sheffield University e-mail identity. If you create multiple Turnitin registrations (e.g. a.student @sheffield.ac.uk ; a.student @ hotmail.co.uk etc), Turnitin will regard each registration as a completely different person. In each classroom, there are revision slots, allowing you to submit several drafts of an assignment without these being checked against each other for text matching. This option only works within one classroom, not between different classrooms. However, if you submit several drafts to the same classroom using different Turnitn registrations, the revision slots will not work, and you will find work from a.student @sheffield.ac.uk will be shown as text matching with work from a.student @ hotmail.co.uk

So: be consistent in the Turnitin registration you use for submitting written work and ideally only create one Turnitin registration using your Sheffield University e-mail.

Generally, course tutors or course administrators will set up individual classrooms for each piece of written work. Only staff setting up Turnitin classrooms have access to those classrooms. Alan O’Rourke only has access to the Turnitin classrooms for the test exercise and dissertations. For queries about other Turnitin classrooms (when they will be available, pass words etc), you must ask the module tutor or course administrator.

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Does a text matching score of under 25% in a Turnitin originality report guarantee that my work is free of plagiarismNo. When text-matching, Turnitin is comparing your work with electronic resources: other student essays in its databases, e-journals, web-pages. It will not check your work against text books and journals which exist in paper format only. If the tutor marking your essay suspects that you have plagiarised from such printed sources, they will check you text against these originals, and the School may require you to attend and explain any such similarities between your work and the printed resources. If plagiarism from these printed sources is proved, the School will apply appropriate disciplinary action. When using printed sources, the University expects you to follow the usual academic rules for using material which is not your own original data:

For all direct quotes, you must indicate these clearly by using indentation, quotation marks or italics.

You must include a citation with a page or paragraph number with each such quotation.

Generally, direct quotes should not make up more than 10% of your total text.

In most cases, we would expect you to express the ideas from the sources in your own words, and often to include critical analysis or reflection on those ideas, or comparison with other sources, with appropriate citations to show where the original material has come from

References:Baigent C (2005) Aspirin for everyone older than 50? Against British Medical Journal 330: 1442-3

Barker D (1995) Foetal origins of coronary heart disease British Medical Journal 311: 171-4

Bulstrode C (1995) Continuity of care--sacred cow or vital necessity? British Medical Journal 310: 1144-5

Daintith J, Isaacs A (1990) Collins Reference Dictionary: Medical Quotations London: Collins

Department of Health (1998) A First Class Service: quality in the new NHS London: Department of Health

Elwood P, Morgan G, Brown G, Pickering J (2005) Aspirin for everyone older than 50? British Medical Journal 330:1440-1

Greenhalgh T, Hurwitz B (1999) Narrative based medicine: Why study narrative? British Medical Journal 318: 48-50

Kannel W, D'Agostino R, Belanger A (1987) Fibrinogen, cigarette smoking, and risk of cardiovascular disease: insights from the Framingham Study American Heart Journal. 113(4): 1006-10

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Sackett D, Rosenberg W, Gray J, Haynes R, Richardson W (1996) Evidence based medicine: what it is and what it isn't British Medical Journal 312: 71-2

University of Sheffield. (2009) Quality and Standards Committee Working Group on Plagiarism and Collusion In The Assessment Process. Notes of guidance to departments. Use Of Unfair Means In The Assessment Process. http://www.shef.ac.uk/content/1/c6/08/66/19/Student%20Guidance%20-%20Unfair%20Means.pdf last accessed April 28th, 2009

Watson J, Moss F (2001) TB in Leicester: out of control, or just one of those things? British Medical Journal 322: 1133-4

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Please note: Your course tutors will want to confirm that you have submitted:

A Turnitin originality report for your test essay, on obesity and physical activity.

A completed Appendix B declaration on plagiarism

before they mark your first assessment.

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Appendix A - Using Turnitin software for your assignments

You will be required to use Turnitin software for all your assignments (unless specifically advised otherwise by the Module Tutor). This is what you need to do:1. Complete your assignment and save it in as a WORD document

2. The Module Tutor will provide you with access to a Turnitin classroom <Classroom name> and a password for that specific classroom

3. Go to http://www.submit.ac.uk

4. Click user login

5. Enter your e-mail and the password

6. Click the class name <Classroom name>1 . Turnitin only allows one attempt at each paper for each student, so your tutor will create several assignment slots. For your first attempt, submit your assignment to draft 1. If the Originality Report is satisfactory, this can be your final version for your tutor to mark. If you need to revise it, use Revision 1 for your first revision and so on, until you get a suitable version you can hand in.

7. For the appropriate assignment from the assignment list, use the submit option. Browse your computer files to find the assignment you need to submit. Select the assignment, give it the title [Module tutor to nominate title]

8. Click submit to submit your assignment online to Turnitin.

9. The system will preview the paper, so you can make sure it is the one you really want to submit. Assuming that it is, click yes, submit

10. Turnitin will generate a paper ID number for your work.

11. If you use the Class Portfolio button, you can see how Turnitin has analysed your work for matched text. There may be a slight delay here while Turnitin scans your work, and you may need to log out of Turnitin and return to it after about ten minutes.

12. You will be provided with an Originality Report showing what proportion of the assignment appears to be plagiarised.

If you click on the percentage score under contents, you can review the text of your assignment, including which sections Turnitin has matched from other sources. You can use the print option to print out a copy of this analysis (the Originality Report).

1 To be supplied by module convener or course administrator

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13. (a) If the Originality Report indicates a rating of more than 24 per cent, read the report carefully to identify why it has come back with a higher score. Make alterations to ensure you are referencing correctly. If you have quoted from a source without giving due credit to the author, you need to make sure you indicate the source, and make sure you are not attempting to use too much verbatim material without demonstrating through a reference that it is not your own words.

(b) Submit your assignment again, using Revision 1 etc slots If the Originality Report still indicates a rating of more than 24 per cent, repeat step 14 (a) until you get below this target.

14. When you have met the target, repeat the Turnitin process using the final version option. Then print out the first page only of the Originality Report from Turnitin and attach this to your assignment.

15. Sign Appendix C - the standard cover sheet which declares that the work is your own

16. Submit two paper copies of the assignment with the first page only of the Turnitin originality report and the Appendix C cover sheet.

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Appendix B Initial Declaration on Plagiarism and Collusion

Initial Declaration on Plagiarism and Collusion

NAME……………………………………………………….

REGISTRATION NUMBER………………………………..

PROGRAMME TITLE………………………………………..

Declaration:

I have read and understand the rules in the student handbook relating to citation, referencing, collusion and plagiarism.

I understand what constitutes plagiarism and collusion in academic work, and how the University of Sheffield deals with student work containing plagiarised text or evidence of collusion.

I understand that any work I submit may be checked using specific software to detect plagiarised passages, and that my department may retain copies of my work for teaching about plagiarism.

I understand the penalties the University may impose on students where plagiarism or collusion, in work they submit as part of a course of study leading to an academic qualification, is substantiated.

I understand that plagiarism constitutes grounds for failure in any paper or assignment and that plagiarism may result in failing the unit or the qualification as a whole.

Signed………………………………………………………..

Date…………………………………………………………..

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C

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Appendix C - Coversheet for all assessed work

Coversheet for all assessed work

NAME……………………………………………………….

REGISTRATION NUMBER………………………………..

PROGRAMME TITLE………………………………………..

Declaration:

I have read and understand the rules in the student handbook relating to citation, referencing, collusion and plagiarism.

I understand that plagiarism constitutes grounds for failure in any paper or assignment and that plagiarism may result in failing the unit or the qualification as a whole.

I have submitted a copy of the attached assignment to the Plagiarism Detection Software. The result was (Tick where applicable):

A. The attached Originality Report indicated a rating of 24% or less for the entire assignment, including references

B. The attached Originality Report indicated a rating of 25% or more for the entire assignment and my explanation is as follows

Explanation:

Signed………………………………………………………..

Date…………………………………………………………..

ScHARR

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Appendix D - USE OF UNFAIR MEANS IN THE ASSESSMENT PROCESS PLAGIARISM AND COLLUSION – ADVICE TO STUDENTSWhen preparing essays, projects or other work, you will read widely and become familiar with the work of others. You should ensure that the materials you prepare for submission would be accepted as your own original work. A lecturer or tutor who is assessing your work is interested in your understanding of an idea and you should use your own words to demonstrate your understanding. The selective quoting of material from books and articles is permissible, but the material must always be attributed to its sources by means of quotation marks. In assessed essays, a footnote or brackets naming the author and the title of the text plus the dates of publication would be required, as would a bibliography that provides full references of all the material consulted or used.The basic principle underlying the preparation of any piece of academic work is thatthe work submitted must be your own original work. Plagiarism and collusion are not allowed because they go against this principle. Please note that the rules about plagiarism and collusion apply to all assessed and non-assessed work, including essays, experimental results and computer code. Cutting and pasting from web sites would also be considered unacceptable.Plagiarism is passing off others’ work as your own, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to your benefit. The work can include ideas, compositions, designs, images, computer code, and, of course, words. This list is not exhaustive. The benefit accrued could be, for example, an examination grade or the award of a research degree.If a student submits a piece of work produced by others, or copied from another source, this is plagiarismIf a student produces a piece of work which includes sections taken from other authors, this is plagiarism, unless the source has been attributed as outlined above. The length of the copied section is not relevant, since any act of plagiarism offends against the general principle set out above. When copying sections from other authors it is not sufficient simply to list the source in the bibliographyIf a student paraphrases from another source without the appropriate attribution, this is plagiarism. Paraphrasing should use a student’s own words to demonstrate an understanding and accurately convey the meaning of the original work, and should not merely reorder or change a few words or phrases of the existing textIf a student copies from or resubmits his or her own previous work for another assignment, this is self-plagiarism, and is not acceptable.Collusion is a form of plagiarism where two or more people work together to produce a piece of work all or part of which is then submitted by each of them as their own individual work.If a student gets someone else to compose the whole or part of any piece of work, this is collusion.If a student copies the whole or part of someone else’s piece of work with the knowledge and consent of the latter, then this is collusion.If a student allows another student to copy material, knowing that it will subsequently be presented as that students’ own work, then this is collusion.If two or more students work on an assignment together, produce an agreed piece of work and then copy it up for individual submission, then this is collusion.When producing a piece of work arising out of group-work, students should seek the advice of the tutor setting the assigned work regarding the acceptable limits of collaboration.Both plagiarism and collusion are strictly forbidden. Students are warned that the piece of work affected may be given a grade of zero, which in some cases will entail failure in the examination for the relevant unit or research degree.The student may also be referred to the Discipline Committee.You should follow any guidance on the preparation of material given by the academic department setting the assignment. If in doubt, consult the member of academic staff responsible for the unit of study. There is unlikely to be any objection to you discussing the subject of an essay or project with fellow students in general terms, or to quoting from various sources in the work submitted. However, if you have any problems with an assignment you should always consult your tutor, who will give general advice and help.

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