3-4 Plagiarism

Plagiarism and related forms of cheating

College statement on plagiarism

Plagiarism is the taking of another person’s thoughts, words, results, judgments, ideas, etc, and presenting them as your own.

Plagiarism is a form of cheating and a serious academic offence. All allegations of plagiarism will be investigated and may result in action being taken under the College’s Misconduct Regulations. A substantiated charge of plagiarism will result in a penalty being ordered ranging from a mark of zero for the assessed work to expulsion from the College.

Collusion is another form of cheating and is the unacknowledged use of material prepared by several persons working together.

Students are reminded that all work that they submit as part of the requirements for any examination or assessment of the College or of the University of London must be expressed in their own words and incorporate their own ideas and judgments. Direct quotations from the published or unpublished work of others, including that of other students, must always be identified as such by being placed inside quotation marks with a full reference to the source provided in the proper form. Paraphrasing – using other words to express another person’s ideas or judgments – must also be acknowledged (in a footnote or bracket following the paraphrasing) and referenced. In the same way, the authors of images and audiovisual presentations must be acknowledged.

Departmental guidance on avoiding plagiarism

The American Heritage Dictionary defines plagiarism as 'stealing and using [the ideas or writings of another] as one’s own' (Second College Edition, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1982). The word 'stealing' is important, for this practice is dishonest. Plagiarism may take the form of repeating another’s sentences as your own, adopting a particularly apt phrase as your own, or even presenting someone else’s line of thinking in the development of a thesis as though it were your own. In other words, to plagiarize is to give the impression that you have written or thought something that you have in fact borrowed from someone else. It is cheating.

Any work guilty of plagiarism will be punished severely, so it is important to be on your guard to attribute statements to those who made them.