Lecture on Plagiarism and Collusion

Since this is an important topic, I attended the lecture on Plagiarism and Collusion which was delivered by Dr. Simon Morley to the first year students. It is a part of their curriculum in the core course namely-‘Essential Skills in Biomedical Science’. He stated that a  significant number of students are submitting plagiarised work. He said a student from the School of life science was sent out of the Sussex University since he was found twice guilty. He advised the students to adopt good working practices. He said that the Essays/Dissertations/theses, Computer programs, Presentations, Reference lists/Bibliographies, Images/Figures/DataArguments/Debate, the ideas, thoughts and words must be of the writer , and not the work of other people.

The main objectives of this lecture were:

1.To clarify the meaning of plagiarism and collusion to the students.

2.To inform the students on the expectations of good academic conduct.

3.To introduce the students to the citation and referencing requirements for written work.

4.To guide them in the development of personal skills that underpins high quality academic work.

Dr. Simon Morley explained the meaning of plagiarism as follows.

“Plagiarism is the use, without acknowledgement, of the intellectual work of other people, and the act of representing the ideas or discoveries of another as one's own in written work submitted for assessment. To copy the sentences, phrases or even striking expressions without acknowledgement of the source (either by inadequate citation or failure to indicate verbatim quotations), is plagiarism; to paraphrase without acknowledgement is likewise plagiarism. Where such copying or paraphrase has occurred the mere mention of the source in the bibliography shall not be deemed sufficient acknowledgement; each such instance must be referred specifically to its source. Verbatim quotations must be either in inverted commas, or indented, and directly acknowledged.”

Complete plagiarism is when a piece of work is copied entirely from one or more sources. Even if the source(s) are acknowledged, and even properly referenced, it is still considered to be plagiarism as it contains no original work, or interpretation of the information, from the student.

Partial plagiarism involves inserting sections of directly copied and unacknowledged source(s) within an assignment.

 ‘Copy and paste’: The availability of information on the internet & electronic journals means that it is now easy to 'copy and paste' information for assignments. It is important that if such information is included in assignments that it is included in quotation marks ("....") and that it is properly referenced.

 ‘Word switch’: If you copy a sentence or paragraph for the assignment and change a few words it will still be considered to be plagiarism. It is better to paraphrase than to quote, and if one copies a phrase he/she should copy it word by word and use quotation marks.

Dr. Simon also gave some suggestions to the students on ‘how to avoid avoid plagiarism’.

The lecture also covered reference lists. I would like to place before you some of his views on referencing and citation.

How to write Reference List? (This is useful for everybody).

The reference list must contain all the relevant information to enable another reader to find the original source. Date of publication by the author, title of chapter or article, Journal title and publisher, page and volume numbers must be given.

The text and reference list: single author

e.g. Harvard format –where you use the name and date in the text (Morley, 2003 ), and a reference list at the end.

Morley, S.J. (2003) Phosphorylation of initiation factor (eIF) 4E is resistant to SB203580 in cells expressing a drug-resistant mutant of stress-activated protein kinase2a/p38.Cell. Signalling15, 741-749.

The text and reference list: two authors

e.g. Harvard format –where you use the name and date in the text (Naegele and Morley, 2004 ), and a reference list at the end.

Naegele, S., and Morley, S.J.(2004)Molecular cross-talk between MEK1/2 and mTORsignaling during recovery of 293 cells from hypertonic shock.J. Biol. Chem.279, 46023-46034.

The text and reference list: multiple authors

e.g. Harvard format –where you use the name and date in the text (Coldwell et al., 2004), and a reference list at the end.

Coldwell, M.J., Hashemzadeh-Bonehi, L., Hinton, T.M., Morley, S.J., and Pain, V.M.(2004).Expression of fragments of translation initiation factor eIF4GI reveals a nuclear localisation signal within the N-terminal apoptotic cleavage fragment N-FAG. J. Cell Sci.117, 2545-2555.

Referencing on-line sources

Web sites must be referenced in a similar fashion to journals and books. Author (s), Publisher (copyright holder), Date of publication (copyright date), Title PLUS: URL (web address) accession date (date you read the material.)

What is a Bibliography?

A bibliography is not a reference list. It is a list of sources that provide general background information or further develop the ideas presented. It is not the specific list of articles, which you refer to in your writing, and use to directly support your work.

It is not the specific list of articles, which you refer to in your writing, and use to directly support your work.

Unless you are specifically asked to provide a bibliography as well, a reference list and in text citations are all that are necessary.

What is collusion and how do you avoid it?

Collusion is when the students work together on assignments which should be completed alone. For some assignments the students may be required to work together and even submit joint / group work for assessment. Usually a student must submit his/her work which is entirely his/her own. A student who helps another to produce work is guilty of collusion, along with the student who has benefited from  the help by other student.

The course documentation should clearly state which assignments, if any, can be done in collaboration with others and whether that requires producing a joint piece of work or only the preparation for it. The students must only work together on producing an assignment if the course specifically allows it, otherwise this is collusion and is an offence .