Plagiarism

When undertaking your literature review, make sure your notes are in your own words, and that where you do copy down verbatim from your source you mark it as such and make a note of the page number so that you don’t accidentally plagiarise.

 

The text should be entirely in your own words, unless there is a clear justification for quoting another author’s words (usually there isn’t!).  Quotations should count for an absolute maximum of 10% of the overall project.

 

Where you are summarising another author’s ideas, the source for the ideas should be cited (name & year). Quotations must be accompanied by the source including the page reference.  Be careful when you are taking notes in preparation for your project to make it clear to yourself when your notes are actually quotations, so that you don’t run the risk of accidentally plagiarising another author.

 

Penalties for plagiarism are severe. The Board of Examiners can either award a mark of 40%, or award a mark of 0%. Resubmitted work may score a maximum of 40%.

 

ACCIDENTAL PLAGIARISM IS STILL PLAGIARISM!
 

Turnitin

In order to counteract plagiarism, students are requested to submit their work to Turnitin and include the following information with their coursework submissions:
 
Coursework 1 and 2

Students will have the opportunity to submit their work up to 3 times the Turnitin links on Blackboard. This will allow you to view your levels of similarity before submitting a final draft.

Using AI Reasonably

from Ulster University’s AI guidance for students:
Some of the current limitations of Large Language Model (LLM) AI tools are (among others):

  • The tools do not understand the meaning of the words they produce.
  • The tools will often generate arguments that are factually wrong.
  • The tools will often generate false references and quotations.
  • Content generated is not checked for accuracy.
  • The tools can distort the truth and emphasise the strength of an opposing argument.

In their current state, reasonable use of the tools might be for:

  • Planning the structure of written work.
  • Developing creative ideas and inspiration.
  • Answering questions of web-based material.
  • Helping to improve writing skills.
  • Asking for an explanation of a topic.
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