Plagiarism and Other Cheating

Plagiarism is not the only form of cheating in assignments or exams. Here are some very obvious examples of cheating.

These are obviously wrong and carry serious penalties for those caught; and cheats are usually caught in the end. Plagiarism may not seem as serious because it is not so obviously a matter of being caught 'red-handed' in the act of cheating, but do not be deceived, it is just as serious and carries similar penalties.

Detection of Plagiarism

For several years academic staff have been using different techniques to identify those students who deliberately plagiarise other people's work by copying and pasting text into their own assignments. Recently a piece of software has become available to educational organisations that will enable lecturers to check if assignments have been produced using text from other sources, without acknowledgment. This software is widely used across the UK.

The software is described in more detail at http://www.turnitin.com
So if you think you can gain higher marks for your assignment by copying and pasting - think again! You could risk losing all your marks instead!