Plagiarism and Turnitin

Resources:

English Language Teaching Centre

• http://www.shef.ac.uk/eltc/services

What is plagiarism?

• Plagiarism is “passing off others’ work as your own, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to your benefit. The work can include ideas, compositions, designs, images, computer code, and, of course, words”.

Why is it important?

• “Any attempt by a student to gain unfair advantage over another student in the completion of an assessment, or to assist someone else to gain an unfair advantage, is cheating. Cheating undermines the standards of the University’s awards and disadvantages those students who have attempted to complete assessments honestly and fairly. It is an offence against the values of the academic community of which students and staff are both part………“

Tackling Plagiarism

• Detection {Ongoing}– Looking out for

changes in style

– “Googling” a student’s suspect phrases

– Using Plagiarism Detection Software

• Prevention {Preferred}– Teaching everyone what

plagiarism is

– Ensuring all students complete a formative assignment

• Remedial {Time-consuming}– Disciplinary procedures/possible

expulsion

– Resubmission of work

So what is unacceptable and what is acceptable?

Some Bad and Good Examples

Original, from Severin and Tankard (1992)

There is evidence to suggest that newsmakers are becoming particularly savvy about placing items on the media agenda. When for example, President Reagan was running for his second term, he took a tour to promote his administration’s record on environmentalism. The tour was full of photo opportunities, including the president standing on a fishing boat in the Chesapeake Bay and the president wearing a park ranger’s hat at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky. Even though some thought that the Reagan administration had a terrible record on the environment, many people were likely to see photos of the president in the ranger hat and make a positive link between Reagan and the environment.

……and the source is:

Severin W, Tankard J (1992) Communication

Theories: Origins, Methods, and Uses of the

Mass Media.

New York: Longman (3rd edition)

Acceptable Practice ? - Attempt 1

• Evidence suggests that newsmakers are becoming particularly savvy about placing items on the media agenda. When President Reagan was running for his second term, he took a tour to promote his administration’s record on environmentalism. The tour was full of photo opportunities, including the president standing on a fishing boat in the Chesapeake Bay and the president wearing a park ranger’s hat at a cave in Kentucky. Even though some thought that the Reagan administration had a miserable record on the environment, many people were likely to see photos of the president in the ranger hat and make a positive link between Reagan and the environment.

Acceptable Practice ? Attempt 2

• Evidence suggests that newsmakers are becoming particularly savvy about placing items on the media agenda. When President Reagan was running for his second term, he took a tour to promote his administration’s record on environmentalism. The tour was full of photo opportunities, including the president standing on a fishing boat in the Chesapeake Bay and the president wearing a park ranger’s hat at a cave in Kentucky. Even though some thought that the Reagan administration had a miserable record on the environment, many people were likely to see photos of the president in the ranger hat and make a positive link between Reagan and the environment. (Severin & Tankard, 1992, p. 256).

Acceptable Practice ? - Attempt 3

• Severin and Tankard (1992) noted President Reagan’s apparent hypocrisy when he ran for re-election in 1996. By posing for a photo opportunity in a boat on the Chesapeake Bay, Reagan, according to these authors, possibly used the appearance of concern to mislead voters about his actual record on the environment.

Acceptable Practice ? - Attempt 4

Severin and Tankard (1992) noted President Reagan’s apparent hypocrisy when he ran for re-election in 1996. They record that:

“The tour was full of photo opportunities, including the president standing on a fishing boat in the Chesapeake Bay and the president wearing a park ranger’s hat at a cave in Kentucky”. (p. 256)

They went on to comment that:“….many people were likely to see photos of the president in the

ranger hat and make a positive link between Reagan and the environment”. (p.256)

So what are you going to do about it?

• Familiarise yourself with good citation practice (e.g. ALWAYS reference sources of words or ideas)

• Don’t cut and paste (try reading text and then paraphrase in your own words to make notes with screen minimised) –ALWAYS include a reference!

• Follow guidelines in your Student Handbooks and in the study skills module provided

So what are we going to do about it?

• Every Student in ScHARR must complete a plagiarism study skills module

• Every Student will be expected to submit an 800-word assignment to special software for plagiarism checking

• Every course tutor/coordinator will expect you to have completed this plagiarism task before marking your first assignment

Penalties for plagiarism

• We will hear “your side” and consider degree of plagiarism; intent to deceive; whether it is recurrent.

• Penalties vary from “advice,” through requiring you to re-submit the work up to a formal disciplinary hearing

• The ultimate penalty is expulsion from the University

Complete one-off Registration

Scroll down for passwords and security questionClass ID: 18895Password (case sensitive): pare1510

Password and U-card procedure

• Six – 12 characters long; Alphanumeric – at least 1 number

• When asked DON’T Enter Your Name – enter your Ucard number followed by coursee.g.

your first name: 1459328

your last name: Psychotherapy Studies

(Preserves anonymity)

Submitting your work

You will initially have one class: ScHARR Students.

.

Viewing your work

• Log in as above

• Open the classroom

Reports

If icon is

Blue – less than 20 matching words

Green – 0 - 24%

Yellow – 25 – 49%

Orange - 50 – 70%

Red – 75 – 100% matching text

Finally print out your report

Remember!

• 24% or below is our test threshold. This means you have to receive either a Blue report or a Green report

• If you get more than 24% (Yellow, Orange or Red) you will have to resubmit, again and again until you get it right.

• You should “Include quotes” and “Include bibliography” within this generous threshold.

What you need to do

• Work through the Study Skills Module• Complete Test Assignment (12th November 2010

is the target date)• Submit it to http://www.submit.ac.uk • Wait for Originality Report• Print out Originality Report, and Sign

Plagiarism Declaration Form• Submit Report, and declaration to Course

Administrator for your student records.