Essay Cheats

Don’t be an essay cheat – follow these guidelines to avoid plagiarism and cheating.

What constitutes plagiarism or cheating?

You should refer to your university handbook carefully to check its policy on plagiarism or cheating.

If you submit an assignment that contains work that is not your own, without indicating this to the marker (acknowledging your sources) you are committing‘plagiarism’. This might occur in an assignment when:

• using a choice phrase or sentence that you have come across;
• copying word-for-word directly from a text;
• paraphrasing the words from a text very closely;
• using text downloaded from electronic sources;
• borrowing statistics or assembled facts from another person or source;
• copying or downloading figures, photographs, pictures or diagrams without acknowledging your sources;
• copying from the notes or essays of a fellow student; or
• copying from your own notes on a text, tutorial, video or lecture, that contain direct quotations.

Plagiarism may occur inadvertently due to inexperience, so read carefully all the course specific study advice that you receive in your mailings, especially statements concerning plagiarism and how to reference your sources.

Where plagiarised material is included in essays, tutors are likely to notice the shifts in style and may be aware of the source. Seek their advice on this early in your study. The temptation to plagiarise may arise from lack of self-confidence or from lack of understanding about the aims of the assessment and about what is required of you.

Tutors provide a vehicle for assessing your performance during your course and contribute to your overall course result. However, they also assist you in understanding your subject and aid your learning on the course. When you attempt to use the ideas and terms of the course independently, you learn more thoroughly and develop your own writing style. You are likely to perform better in the exams if you
have learned how to write your own answers to questions in essays. By submitting work that is not your own, you are denying yourself the benefit of this valuable learning strategy. Copying the work of others would be counter-productive to yourgoal of understanding the course work and to real achievement. Most students will not wish to take such a negative approach to studying, and the universities do not tolerate it.

Although you are encouraged to show the results of your reading by referring to and quoting from works on your subject, copying from such sources without acknowledgement is deemed to be plagiarism, and will not be accepted by universities. You are encouraged to collaborate with others in studying, but submitted work copied from or written jointly with others is not acceptable. You will be asked to sign a statement that all assessment work you have submitted is your own.

Submitting work that has been done by someone else, and persistent borrowing of other people’s work without proper referencing are obvious instances of plagiarism and are regarded as cheating. Paying for work from other sources and submitting it as your own is also cheating. It is intellectually dishonest to cheat and thus give one student an unfair advantage over others.