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Plagiarism: information and advice for students

What is plagiarism?

The University's Examination Regulations define plagiarism in the following way:

'Plagiarism is the unacknowledged inclusion in a student’s work of material derived from the published or unpublished work of another. This constitutes plagiarism whether it is intentional or unintentional. “Work” includes internet sources as well as printed material. Examples include:

  • Quoting another’s work “word for word” without placing the phrase(s), sentence(s) or paragraph(s) in quotation marks and providing a reference for the source.
  • Using statistics, tables, figures, formulae, data, diagrams, questionnaires, images, musical notation, computer code, etc., created by others without acknowledging and referencing the original source. This list is not intended to be exhaustive.
  • Summarising, or paraphrasing the work or ideas of another without acknowledging and referencing the original source. “Paraphrasing” means re-stating another author’s ideas, meaning or information in a student’s own words.
  • Copying the work of another student, with or without that student’s agreement.
  • Collaborating with another student, even where the initial collaboration is legitimate, e.g., joint project work, and then presenting the resulting work as one’s own. If students are unclear about the extent of collaboration which is permitted in joint work they should consult the relevant tutor.
  • Submitting, in whole or in part, work which has previously been submitted at the University of Bristol or elsewhere, without fully referencing the earlier work. This includes unacknowledged re-use of the student’s own submitted work.
  • Buying or commissioning an essay or other piece of work and presenting it as a student’s own.'

(Section 3.2, Examination Regulations)

The University's Examination Regulations are part of the Rules and Regulations for Students. All students should familiarise themselves with the Rules and Regulations. Postgraduate students should also be aware of rules, regulations and forms relevant to postgraduate programmes of study.

Information for staff on plagiarism issues is available.

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How to avoid plagiarising

Guidance from Faculties, Schools and Departments

Guidance produced by academic departments, ranging from faculty handbooks to individual course handbooks, is available. You should consult the relevant handbooks to ensure that you are working within the specific requirements of your department and course.

Citing references correctly

It is important to reference your work correctly for several reasons:

  • to show the extent of your research
  • so that the reader can identify your sources of information and consult further if they wish
  • to avoid the charge of plagiarism.

There is no single way of writing references. The two most common styles are the Harvard system and the Numeric system.  You will need to use the style specified by your department or by the body or journal to which you are submitting your work. If there are no guidelines specified, you should make sure that you write your references in a consistent way.

Most styles of referencing follow some common conventions.

In the text:

  • If you are quoting only a few words, put them in quotation marks.
  • If you are quoting more than a sentence, the whole quotation is usually indented (left and right margins) and quotation marks are not used.
  • If you are quoting from a source, rather than paraphrasing, you should provide page numbers.
  • … can be used to indicate omissions.
  • [  ] can be used to indicate any of your own words in the quotation.

In the list of references:

  • Put the surnames of authors/editors first followed by a comma and the initial(s).
  • Use (ed.) after the name to signal an editor.
  • If there are a number of authors (see individual systems for how many), write the name of the first only, followed by ‘et al.’
  • If the work has a corporate rather than an individual author, e.g. an organisation or company, use their name at the start of the reference.
  • If the work does not mention an author (e.g. if it is a webpage) refer to it by title.
  • If no date can be identified, say so, (e.g. '(no date)').
  • Write the title and subtitle in italics.

Software packages and websites for managing sets of references

Several University departments have subscribed to the bibliographic software package, EndNote, and there is also now a free online version, EndNote Web. These can be used to record and manage references used in the course of producing academic work. For more information about the availability of EndNote and the appropriate version to use, refer to the EndNote webpages (UOB access only).

Glossary of terms

  • Bibliography – a list of all the printed and online materials you have consulted for your research.
  • Citation – a reference to another source, e.g. book, journal, webpage, etc. in your text.
  • Corporate author – an organisation which is identified as the author of a work.
  • List of references – a list of all the sources you have cited in your text. N.B. this is not the same as a bibliography.
  • Paraphrase – a rewriting of another author’s ideas or arguments in your own words.  Note that any paraphrasing must be referenced.

Abbreviations

  • Anon. – May be used if no author can be identified.  Check first that the work does not have a corporate author or that it is not a collaborative work with many authors which can be referenced by title.
  • et al. – “and others”.  Used after the first author for works with multiple authors.
  • ibid. – “in the same place”.  Used when two (or more) references from the same source occur consecutively in the list of references. The first reference would be cited in full and the following one(s) would be cited Ibid.
  • op. cit. – “in the work cited”.  Used following the author’s name to indicate that the reference is the same work as last cited for that author.

Online guides

Printed guides

Paraphrasing original sources correctly

Paraphrasing a source or summarising the main points of a writer’s argument can show that you have understood the issues more clearly than if you simply quote what someone else has written.  However, it is insufficient to simply change a few words of the original text and you must ensure that you have restated the argument or point in your own words.  One helpful tip is to read and digest the original text then close the book while you write.  You must make clear exactly which parts of your writing are paraphrased or summarised from another writer and provide a reference.

Checklist of tips to avoid plagiarism

In many cases, plagiarism is simply a result of carelessness or lack of organisation and therefore can be easily avoided by using a methodical approach to planning and writing work. 

  • Allow enough time to plan and write your work.
  • When doing research, keep a record of everything you read, including author, title, publication date and place of publication. 
  • If you read online materials, keep a note of author, title, date (if you can find one), url and the date you viewed the page.
  • If you take notes from a work, keep a record of the page number and source (or paragraph, url and date for webpages) of anything you write down.
  • If you copy pieces of text directly into your notes, make sure you mark them in some way, e.g. by enclosing in quotation marks, so you will know later that they are direct quotations.
  • If you photocopy or print material, make sure you have noted all the bibliographic details on the copy or print-out.
  • If you copy and paste material from an online source, make sure you have enclosed it in quotation marks and referenced it correctly.
  • Remember that paraphrasing also needs to be acknowledged.
  • Before you hand in work, check the following:
    • Have you enclosed all direct quotations in quotation marks and cited the source?
    • For direct quotations, have you included a page number?
    • Have you cited a source for any text you have paraphrased?
    • Have you included a bibliography at the end of the work?
    • Do all in-text citations have a corresponding reference in the list of references at the end of the work?
  • Save all your research, i.e. notes, photocopies, printouts until your work has been assessed.

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Consequences of plagiarism

The University's Examination Regulations state that:

'Any thesis, dissertation, essay, or other course work must be the student’s own work and must not contain plagiarised material.  Any instance of plagiarism in such coursework will be treated as an offence under these regulations.' (Section 3.1)

The Examination Regulations give information on the University's procedures for dealing with cases of plagiarism in undergraduate and taught postgraduate programmes of study (Section 4)  and in theses submitted for research degrees (Section 5).

The University subscribes to the JISC system, Turnitin UK, an electronic tool that many departments use to test submitted work for plagiarism.

The University's Student Help website offers advice on issues relating to coursework and assignments, including plagiarism.

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