Plagiarism and Turnitin

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined by the New Oxford Shorter English Dictionary as "the taking and using as one's own ... the thoughts, writings and inventions of another". This can happen through copying, summarising or paraphrasing someone else's work or ideas, then not acknowledging the original author and passing the material off as your own independent work. Often this can be accidental (e.g. you've forgotten to reference something), but it can also be done deliberately.

The University defines plagiarism as “'presenting someone else’s ideas as your own in a substantial proportion of your work, with or without consent, by incorporating it into assessment without full acknowledgement”. NTU classes plagiarism as an academic integrity issue, and there are a number of different penalties which may be applied to plagiarism offences. The Academic Integrity Policy lists the different penalties which may be applied to plagiarism offences, and what will happen if a student is suspected of a breach of academic integrity.

Examples of plagiarism include:

• The inclusion in a candidate’s work of material from another person’s work without the use of quotation marks and full acknowledgement of the source;
• The summarising of another person’s work by simply changing words or altering the order of presentation, without full acknowledgement;
• Self-plagiarism: students are not permitted to reuse work they have previously submitted, without proper reference and acknowledgement in the current assessment being submitted.

Plagiarism Support

Plagiarism can be a difficult concept to understand.  To help you understand more about it, visit the Plagiarism and Academic Integrity at NTU Learning Room which contains support materials and interactive quizzes.  This room also includes the compulsory NTU Plagiarism Assessment, which you are required to complete in each year of your study.

NOW Student Help includes some materials to help you recognise examples of plagiarism and improve your academic writing, so that you won’t be accused of plagiarism.  The Library Learning and Teaching Team can help you with your plagiarism questions – book an appointment, or come along to one of our workshops.

Turnitin

Turnitin is an online tool that enables staff and students to check documents for text matches against its database of papers, articles and web pages.  When a piece of coursework is submitted to Turnitin, an Originality Report is generated which highlights where patterns of words match patterns in other documents.

NTU’s Policy on the use of text-matching software applies to all taught courses at undergraduate and master’s level.  Within those courses, the policy applies only to assessments with a significant written element; it does not apply to practical assessments or exams.  All students will be introduced to Turnitin through the Plagiarism and Academic Integrity at NTU Learning Room which covers:

• How to upload to Turnitin;
• How to interpret a Turnitin report;
• How to use a Turnitin report to make improvements to work in progress and to identify skills gaps.

If you would like to know more about Turnitin, book an appointment, or come along to one of our workshops.