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The Exeter Award

Enhance your employability


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The University takes an extremely serious view of any examples of cheating. Cheating includes plagiarism. You can be guilty of plagiarism if you copy, without proper attribution, from e.g. a book, article, lecture handout, electronically stored text or another student's work.

Turnitin

Students and staff in most subject areas have access to the plagiarism detection software package Turnitin. Some of your modules may require you to submit an electronic copy as well as hard copies. Over the next few weeks departments will email you with details of how you can use Turnitin to help you avoid plagiarising material. Turnitin is a useful developmental tool for you. It will also enable staff to check your work if they have any concerns that you may have plagiarised.

Punishment

If you are found to be plagiarising work, the penalties are severe. Less serious cases can be dealt with by the Head of College of the relevant subject area or by the FCH Director and will involve a penalty such as the requirement to redo the work, possibly with a capping of the mark for the whole module at 40; more serious cases will be reported to the Academic Secretary of the University, who will convene a senior committee to hear the case. Where the matter is proved, it will be treated as a disciplinary offence and could lead to exclusion from the University.

Note, too, that when we come to write references for you for potential employers, we are asked about your honesty and integrity: and it will be difficult for us to write a convincing reference if you are a known plagiarist.

So it is essential you recognise what plagiarism is and avoid it !!

Avoiding plagiarism

To guard against the more inadvertent forms of plagiarism, you should be sure that you adopt good notetaking techniques and reference your sources properly, attributing ideas, quotations etc that are not your own.

Plagiarism does not just mean copying from published books or articles: it applies to material taken from the internet, and to attempts to pass off the work of another student as your own.

The University has a detailed policy on cheating and plagiarism at: http://admin.exeter.ac.uk/academic/tls/tqa/Part%208/8Lplag1.pdf

If you are in any doubt whether you are committing plagiarism, consult your module teacher.