Plagiarism
At all costs avoid plagiarism. The dictionary definition of 'to plagiarise' is 'to take and
use another person's thoughts, writings or inventions as one's own'. The most
obvious form is using someone else's words without any acknowledgement, but
there are other kinds of plagiarism: for example, using a verbatim passage without
quotation marks even if the source was correctly acknowledged in a reference. When
the work of other people is referred to there should always be clear and accurate
acknowledgement.
All of the following are considered to be plagiarism:
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submitting for assessment someone else's work as if it were your own
copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
giving insufficient information about the source of a quotation, e.g. failure to
provide the page number(s) from which the quote was taken
changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving
credit
copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of
your work, whether you give credit or not
Finally, self-plagiarism, which refers to the verbatim reuse of any text
already submitted for assessment either at UCL or any other university.
This includes the research proposal developed for AMERG001 or AMERG002,
text from which must not be copied into any other work submitted for
assessment, including the final dissertation.
Plagiarism will not be tolerated and the penalties are severe. In minor cases of
plagiarism the module tutor will, at his/her discretion, impose a penalty and report the
matter to the Departmental Graduate Tutor and to the Postgraduate Programmes
Officer for noting on the student’s file, but no further action or report will be made
(unless there are subsequent allegations). Minor cases of plagiarism are classified as
those where it is a first offence, less than one third plagiarised and early in the
programme of study (the first term of a one year programme). The penalties for minor
cases of plagiarism are restricted to one or more of the following:
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An informal reprimand.
A requirement for the student to resubmit the assessment in question.
A reduced or zero mark.
If a case does not meet the criteria for minor plagiarism, the module tutor will complete
part I and II of the a ‘Breach of the Examination Regulations’ report and send this with
supporting documentation to the Institute Chair of the Exam Board. If it is a second or
repeat offence OR there is use or attempt to use another student’s work without their
knowledge or if it involves plagiarism that if proved would leave to suspension or
termination of study then the case is automatically referred to the Academic Registrar.
If not, a departmental panel will be set up; full regulations can be found here:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/srs/academic-regulations/docs/irregularities_procedure_14-15
Additionally, the process flowchart can be found here: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/srs/academicregulations/appendices/APPENDIX_11_-_Summarizing_Breach_of_Assessment_Procedures.pdf
Full details of the UCL definition of plagiarism and the regulations and advice
concerned with this can be found at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/currentstudents/guidelines/plagiarism. You are strongly advised to read these regulations
carefully and to take care to implement all of the advice given in the pages. “Failure to
observe any of the provisions of UCL’s plagiarism policy or of approved departmental
guidelines constitutes an examination offence under UCL and University Regulations.
Examination offences will normally be treated as cheating or irregularities under the
Regulations in respect of Examination Irregularities. Under these Regulations students
found to have committed an offence may be excluded from all further examinations of
UCL or the University or of both.”
References
References are scholarly acknowledgements of work referred to or quoted. Please note
that proper citation of sources is an elementary but imperative element in the
presentation of academic work. There are several different conventions and it does not
matter which one you adopt provided that you cite sources properly, giving all the
necessary information and keep consistently to the same convention.
The Institute recommends the use of the ‘Harvard’ system which requires you to
provide the surname of the author and date of publication for simple references to
the work of another and, for direct quotations, the page number(s) from which the
quote is taken. For example: ‘As Morris (1995) indicates, poorly referenced essays are
likely to be penalised. She goes on to explain that “overt plagiarism should always be
subject to disciplinary procedures” (Morris, 1995: 212).’
At the end of all your assessed coursework you should provide a single list of all the
references you have used. This list of references should be arranged alphabetically
with full bibliographic information. The alphabetical list should include all the
references that have been used (books, articles, reports, government publications,
theses, web pages, etc.). The references in the alphabetical list should contain the
name of the author, the date of publication, the title of publication, the place of
publication and the publisher, set out as follows:
For books:
Morris, W. (1995) Academic writing for postgraduate students. London: Pernickety
Press.For articles:
Morris, W. (2000) ‘The perfect postgraduate dissertation’, The Journal of Academic
Studies 6
(2) pp.35-48.
For chapters in books:
Morris, W. (2010) ‘Postgraduate degree assessment in the UK’, in M Jones (ed) The
International Handbook of Postgraduate Education, Cheltenham: Elgar pp. 19-37.
For government reports where there is no author’s name:
Department of Education (2003) Reforming the University Sector, (London: HMSO).
For electronic documents:
A good guide for citations of electronic documents can be found here. In particular,
remember that the contents of Web sites can change so it is important to include
details of the date on which the material was consulted.
Additionally, there are many useful resources on referencing available from the UCL
library’s available here and on reference management here.
If you would like to take a Moodle course on plagiarism and academic writing you can
enroll
here.
Failure to observe any of the provisions of UCL’s policy on plagiarism constitutes an
examination offence under UCL’s Examination Regulations. Examination offences will
normally be treated as cheating or irregularities under the regulations for Examination
Irregularities. Under these Regulations students found to have committed an offence
may be excluded from all further examinations at UCL.
Self-plagiarism
Finally with respect to plagiarism, don’t forget that it is possible to plagiarise yourself,
even if you are citing work you submitted elsewhere. This is because students are not
permitted to receive credit for the same work twice and in most cases self-plagiarism
will result in a fail grade (or worse). Students are allowed to use ideas and literature
used in other coursework but they cannot use precisely the same words - each piece of
assessed coursework (including the final dissertation) must be a unique piece of work.
Academic Writing Support & Training
Please see section 15.
6 Submission of Assessed Essays and Dissertations
All Institute of the Americas assessed essays and dissertations are submitted
electronically through the Turnitin assignment link on the relevant Moodle course
page (e.g. AMERG004 Democratization). The essays must be submitted before
12pm on the deadline date. For further details please see below. If you are taking a
course(s) at other UCL Departments or Colleges of the University of London, please
check the submission arrangements for assessed work as they are likely to differ
from the Institute of the Americas.
Essay submission format
Essays must include a title page showing the following information ONLY: candidate
number, course code and title, essay title, submission date and word count.
Your name must NOT appear anywhere in your electronic submission or in the
‘Submission Title’ box in Turnitin. Instead, you will be issued with a candidate
number. In the Turnitin ‘Submission Title’ box you should write the title of your
essay or dissertation and your candidate number.