Plagiarism
Plagiarism is when you use someone else’s work and portray it as your own.
This can be in the form of drawings, tables, images/photos, as well as written material sourced from books, articles and websites. Under no circumstances should you plagiarise in your work.
The University defines plagiarism as the following:
“presenting for assessment someone else’s work or ideas as the student’s own. This includes failure to acknowledge clearly and explicitly the ideas, words or work of another person whether these are published or unpublished” (Regulation XVIII)
Undertaking a degree at university is all about developing your own thoughts and ideas to ensure you experience an enriching learning experience that helps you make the most out of your time studying for a degree and enables you to produce high quality work.
Of course, citing short pieces of material from other authors correctly in your work in most cases is appropriate and will actually form a key part of your coursework and assessments by strengthening your arguments, so make sure you learn the appropriate referencing model for your degree. If you do explicitly cite other authors words, you should always show this by using “quotation marks” around the quote.
Further resources
More information about plagiarism, as well as the different examples of acceptable and unacceptable use of other people’s work, can be found on the Student Handbook webpages.