Programme handbook

Plagiarism is a serious disciplinary offence and even unintentional plagiarism is a disciplinary matter. The University takes plagiarism very seriously and is committed to ensuring that so far as possible it is detected and dealt with appropriately. Whilst it is perfectly normal in most academic disciplines to make use of another person’s ideas and to take factual information from books and articles, the overall structure of an argument being presented, the weighting of the significance of the different points being made, and the final conclusions reached in response to the question posed are all expected to be your personal and original work.

Examples of plagiarism include:

• buying or being allowed to copy another person’s work
• paraphrasing an argument or section of published work without proper acknowledgement of the source
• passing off as your own an entire piece of work, or significant part of a piece of work, written by another
• presenting as if they were your own sentences, paragraphs or pages from a paper, book or other published (including electronic) source
• using another person’s written work with (or without) permission

• using work previously submitted by yourself (e.g. for another course or at another university) as being an original piece of work (self-plagiarism)

You can avoid plagiarism by ensuring that ALL of the sources that you choose to use when preparing written work are adequately acknowledged and properly referenced, including any work of your own.  Please be sure to provide a full citation for all of the sources that you use when preparing any written work (including any of your own assignments submitted for other courses or any other of your own work).  The innocent misuse or citation of material without proper acknowledgement can constitute plagiarism without the presence of a deliberate intent to cheat. The University provides guidance for students on how to avoid plagiarism, which is available here: http://www.ed.ac.uk/academic-services/staff/discipline/plagiarism

The following regulation applies:

Taught Assessment Regulation 30 Academic Misconduct

It is an offence for any student to make use of unfair means in any University assessment, to assist a student to make use of such unfair means, to do anything prejudicial to the good conduct of the assessment, or to impersonate another student or allow another person to impersonate them in an assessment. Any student found to have cheated or attempted to cheat in an assessment may be deemed to have failed that assessment and disciplinary action may be taken.

Further guidance can be found in the Taught Assessment Regulations for the relevant year at:

https://www.ed.ac.uk/files/atoms/files/tar18-19.pdf 

Suspected cases of academic misconduct are reported to the relevant College Academic Misconduct Officer (CAMO).

Any student who is registered with a professional body should be aware that all such organisations regard plagiarism as a serious professional concern. Any such student found to have committed plagiarism in an assessment at the University of Edinburgh may be reported to the relevant professional body.

Turnitin

The University of Edinburgh uses ‘Turnitin’ plagiarism detection software to assist in detecting possible cases of plagiarism. Turnitin UK is an online service which searches the World Wide Web and extensive databases of reference material, as well as content previously submitted by other users. Any final assignments which are in an essay format will be submitted to Turnitin and feedback will be given to students.

Once work has been submitted to the system, it becomes part of the ever-growing database of material against which subsequent submissions are checked. Turnitin makes no decisions about whether a student has plagiarised, it simply highlights sections of text which are duplicated in other sources. In most cases, the text will have been correctly cited. Where highlighted sections are relevant and appropriate cited, the marker will be able to see this.