plagiarism john barnden senior tutor & professor of artificial intelligence school of computer...

PlagiarismJohn Barnden

Senior Tutor& Professor of Artificial Intelligence

School of Computer Science

Taught Students – July 2014

Introduction• Plagiarism is a form of CHEATING and can be legally FRAUDULENT

• It’s mainly about copying work from other students or material from books, papers, websites, etc. and passing it off as your own — i.e., pretending that you yourself created the work or material. But there are other types of case.

• It could get you into serious trouble with us:– you could lose marks or fail a module (even your project !)– your degree result could be affected– you could be excluded from the University.

• It could get you into serious trouble in the real world:– with your employer

– with The Law

Intro, contd

• Lecturers and demonstrators are quite good at noticing changes of style that indicate copying.

• They frequently input suspicious segments of writing or code into search engines and find the websites they came from!

• If in doubt whether something needs attribution, quotation, etc., ASK a relevant member of staff.

• The fine detail of what counts as plagiarism can vary from module to module or even from assignment to assignment in a module, especially where code is concerned.

What is Plagiarism?

• Plagiarism is intentionally presenting something as your own original work when in fact it isn’t

– usually for marks, money, fame, a contract, a job, …

or helping someone else do that.

• The something can be text (including diagrams, tables. mathematics, etc.), speech, thoughts, inventions, artistic work, program code or data, …

• The actual creators of the work could be, for example:– other students, here or elsewhere– your friends or relatives– authors of articles and books, incl. textbooks (printed or electronic!)– authors of websites– other programmers, automated code-creation facilities – people talking on radio or TV

What is Plagiarism: Some Special Cases

• HELPING ANOTHER STUDENT TO PLAGIARIZE is itself an offence.– main case: being the source of plagiarized material, including giving another student

your work so that they can claim it’s their own.

• AUTO-PLAGIARISM is an offence– submission of work closely similar to work you’ve previously received a mark for

[unless there are special circumstances].

• BUYING material from a source that sells academic work for gain is automatically regarded as serious plagiarism regardless of its extent.

Effect onYou• Penalties for moderate to serious cases of verified plagiarism go from

reduction or zeroing of the mark for a piece of work, reduction or zeroing of the module mark, or (in extremely serious cases) ejection from the degree programme.

• A major penalty on a major piece of work could indirectly worsen your overall degree result.

• Repeated offences can lead to heavier penalties.

• A letter goes into your student file in the School, and can affect later decisions about you and can affect reference letters that staff write for you.

Effect on You, contd.

• For properly attributed segments of a piece of work, you don’t of course get credit for the ideas taken from other people, ….

• but you do get credit for good referencing

• and for your added value: finding the ideas, showing evidence of understanding them, putting them together, finding connections, organizing, discussing, etc.

Some Useful Sources of Info about Plagiarism

• UoB Code of Practice on Plagiarism, 2013—14: www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/university/legal/plagiarism.pdf [accessed 18 July 2014]

• University page on plagiarism for students: https://intranet.birmingham.ac.uk/as/studentservices/conduct/plagiarism/index.aspx

[accessed 18 July 2014]

• SoCS Guidance Notes on Plagiarism: www.cs.bham.ac.uk/internal/students/plagiarism.htm


• Wikipedia (2010). Plagiarism. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism


• Coxhead, P. (2009). A referencing style guide. www.cs.bham.ac.uk/~pxc/refs/


Notice the inclusion of access dates.

A Way of Naturally Avoiding (Apparent) Plagiarism

• In something like and essay or the research section of a project report, you should in any case be re-explaining, summarizing, abbreviating, connecting, recategorizing, commenting, criticizing …

• This will naturally lead you away from using verbatim bits (i.e., the actual words of the originator) and presenting other people’s thoughts without attribution.

• And because you will be comparing, contrasting and otherwise connecting thoughts of different people, you will naturally want to make thought-origins clear by explicit attribution.

Other Points

• Keep absolutely clear notes of where you draw thoughts, text, etc. from.

– From websites: Record the URLs and the dates you accessed the pages.

• When you record a bibliographic entry of a work you’ve read, include detailed notes of important ideas in it, and if the work is at all large include page numbers with the notes.

Summary on Text Use/Copying

• Include explicit, clear and exact attributions—see remaining slides.

• Use explicit quotation (see remaining slides) to mark off verbatim bits.

– Quotation can be by quotation marks and/or by indentation accompanied by (usually) italicization and/or smaller font.

• But actually it’s better to try to put things into your own words unless you have a special reason to proceed verbatim.

(Special reasons: e.g., you may want to capture a complex thought especially carefully, or you may want to capture a stylistic feature.)

Detailed Points on Use/Copying of Text

• Suppose the famous computer scientist and ex-UoB SoCS student Gandalph McBogglebrain wrote the following in his book The Challenging Truth about Programming (Brasilia: Three-Toed Sloth Publishing Outfit, 2012: 456):

Many ordinary people think of programming as just a technical activity done by nerds like me. They may even think that programmers are trying to avoid having to deal with people by communing with computers instead. They may think that a programmer is a bit like a lab technician manipulating test tubes and weird-looking machines. Or perhaps as an engineer constructing a machine. In fact, really good programming requires a fine appreciation of how people think. Why? Because most programs need to be understandable by people. And why is that? Because people are probably going to correct them, update them, develop other code on the basis of them, etc. etc.

Use/Copying of Text, contd.• It would be wrong of you to write the following in a piece of work

(project report, individual study report, a mini-essay, another sort of assignment, a presentation, …):

Programming is generally regarded as a technological thing. In fact, really good programming requires a fine appreciation of how people think. Why? Because most programs need to be understandable by people. So you need to think about how your program comes over to people.

• It’s wrong because

you have included a significant piece of text (in red) by someone else without citing the source

and, worse, without making clear that the text is verbatim (word for word).

Also, the mauve text, although in your own words, reports someone else’s thought without saying so.

Use/Copying of Text, contd. 2

• What you should have done, if you wanted still to include a verbatim segment, is something like the following:

Gandalph McBogglebrain (2012: 456) points out that programming is generally regarded as merely a technological thing, but goes on to say that “In fact, really good programming requires a fine appreciation of how people think. Why? Because most programs need to be understandable by people.” So he says that you need to think about how your program comes over to people.

• The main point: the thoughts are now properly attributed, and the verbatim part is marked off (by quotation marks).

Use/Copying of Text, contd. 3• As before, but indicating quotation by indentation (both sides) and use

of a smaller font and spacing, not by quotation marks:

Gandalph McBogglebrain (2012: 456) points out that programming is generally regarded as a technological thing, but goes on to say

So he says that you need to think about how your program comes over to people.

In fact, really good programming requires a fine appreciation of how people think. Why? Because most programs need to be understandable by people.


• It would still be wrong if you just wrote the following:

Programming is generally regarded as merely a technological thing. Actually for you to be an excellent programmer, people need to be able to understand your code. So you need to think about how your program comes over to people.

• It’s wrong because, although you’ve now put everything in your own words, you haven’t attributed the thoughts to McBogglebrain.


• And of course it would be wrong just to write:

Programming is generally regarded as merely a technological thing. “In fact, really good programming requires a fine appreciation of how people think. Why? Because most programs need to be understandable by people.” So you need to think about how your program comes over to people.

• You’ve used proper quotation but you haven’t included an attribution.

Use/Copying of Text, contd. 6• The following is technically wrong but not quite so serious a

transgression:

Gandolph McBogglebrain (2012: 456) points out that programming is generally regarded as a technological thing, but in fact, really good programming requires a fine appreciation of how people think. Why? Because most programs need to be understandable by people. So he says that you need to think about how your program comes over to people.

• You’ve properly attributed the thoughts but haven’t quoted the verbatim bit.

• If we were fully satisfied you didn’t intend to deceive anyone we would just mark you down for poor referencing practice.

“Quasi-Quotation”

• Use this when you want to quote something but want to simplify or clarify the wording, without going as far as re-expressing in your own words.

• Exact quotation:

They may think that a programmer is a bit like a lab technician manipulating test tubes and weird-looking machines. Or perhaps as an engineer constructing a machine. In fact, really good programming requires a fine appreciation of how people think.

• A quasi-quoted version, which may be more useful:

[Ordinary people] may think that a programmer is a bit like a … technician manipulating [laboratory equipment]. … [R]eally good programming requires a fine appreciation [i.e., understanding] of how people think.

Technical Terms• Standard technical terms such as “binary tree” and well-known

mathematical formulas, etc. can be used without quotation or attribution ….

• but non-standard terms or formulas proposed by a particular author need attribution and (on first use anyway) quotation (via quotation marks, italicization, or indentation, etc.). So your text could be:

A revolutionary new data structure, the sap-emitting tree [McBogglebrain 2012: 327], is now being used to speed up large government databases a million-fold. Sap-emitting trees work by autonomously expelling infrastructural information that is no longer needed …

Using Code That Isn’t Yours• Our student handbook allows small amounts of code (a few lines) from

textbooks, lecture notes, manuals, etc. to be used without attribution even in other modules, in projects, etc.

• But as a general guide, you need to include attributions (in comments or other documentation) if the copied bits amount to more than a minority of the code within a minority of code units (methods, classes, procedures, …) …

• unless the instructor specifically allows you not to include attributions.

• Always ask your instructors if in doubt about something.

Using Code That Isn’t Yours, contd.

• For each code unit (or each file of code units), say who the author is, or say whether more than a minority of the code is taken from another author. E.g., if your name is Tasmania Aplanalp:

Author: Tasmania Aplanalp, by adapting code from McBogglebrain (2014:157).

Created 23 October 2015. Last modified 26 October 2016.

• Similarly if you’re taking code from another person—usually a student—at this university or elsewhere. You should clearly identify the student by name, and also give other info such as whether the student is in the same module, or, if not: where they are (university and department) and what degree programme they’re in (e.g. BSc in CS), at what level (e.g. Year 1).

Using Code That Isn’t Yours, contd. 2• Bad and silly types of thing from recent cases of alleged

plagiarism:

– Author: Nasuto

– Author: Tom Jones

where Nasuto and Tom Jones were laptop names (though I haven’t used the actual names in the cases), automatically inserted as author names by an IDE that creates code templates.

The students had the unpleasant experience of defending themselves against plagiarism accusations.

And staff had the unpleasant experience of having their time wasted with the cases.

Put proper author names in!!