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SMS MSc Student Handbook 2021/2022 (Sep 2021 Start)

24. Referencing, Plagiarism and Turnitin


Referencing

Different publications use different referencing styles; you should choose one and use it consistently. What is most important is to provide enough information that the reader can find the document you are referencing. You must always include the author and document title, and you must include the publication date of a printed document and the date when you last accessed an online document. See the next chapter for details of recommended referencing styles.

Plagiarism

"Queen Mary defines plagiarism as presenting someone else’s work as your own, whether you meant to or not. Close paraphrasing, copying from the work of another person, including another student, using the ideas of another person, without proper acknowledgement or repeating work you have previously submitted without properly referencing yourself (known as ‘self plagiarism’) also constitute plagiarism." –
Regulations on Assessment Offences, http://www.arcs.qmul.ac.uk/students/student-appeals/assessment-offences/index.html. 

Plagiarism is a serious offence and all students suspected of plagiarism will be subject to an investigation. If found guilty, penalties can range from failure of the module to suspension or permanent withdrawal from Queen Mary.

It is your responsibility to ensure that you understand plagiarism and how to avoid it by appropriate referencing of sources. The recommendations below can help you avoid plagiarism.

  • Be sure to record your sources when taking notes and cite these if you use ideas or, especially, quotations from the original source. Be particularly careful if you are cutting and pasting information between two documents and ensure that references are not lost in the process.
  • Be sensible in referencing ideas – commonly held views that are generally accepted do not always require acknowledgement to particular sources. However, it is best to err on the side of caution to avoid plagiarism.
  • Be particularly careful with quotations and paraphrasing.
  • Be aware that technology is now available at Queen Mary and elsewhere that can automatically detect plagiarism.
  • Ensure that all works used are cited appropriately in the text of your work and fully credited in your reference list or bibliography.
  • See the next chapter for guidance on referencing.
  • If in doubt, ask for further guidance from your project supervisor, module organiser or advisor.

It should be noted that failure to properly credit other students’ work on group assessments or group presentations can also be classed as plagiarism. 

Also the use of ghost writing (e.g. essay mills, code writers, Chegg etc.) and generally using someone external to the institution to produce assessment is an assessment offence.

If in doubt, ask for further guidance from your advisor or module tutor.

Any assessment offence investigations will follow the QMUL Academic Misconduct Policy.



Turnitin

Turnitin is a web-based plagiarism detection system used by most universities in the UK. This section describes how Turnitin is used within the School of Mathematical Sciences and the data it creates about your work.

How Turnitin works
  1. A Turnitin assignment is set up by a member of staff on QMplus. You then access this assignment online and upload your work before the due date. Turnitin will analyse the submitted work to identify text matches with other sources and will compare the work against:
    • the current and archived versions of QMplus;
    • previously submitted work;
    • books and journals.
  2. For each piece of submitted work Turnitin provides two things:
    • a similarity index, which indicates the percentage of the submitted paper that Turnitin has identified as matching other sources;
    • an originality report, which shows each of these matches in more detail, including the source(s) that Turnitin has found.
How we use the information provided by Turnitin
  1. Turnitin is used on all project modules and various assignments that contribute towards your final grade. Turnitin will not normally be used on the following:
    • short assignments (under 500 words);
    • contributions to online discussions;
    • exercises submitted on paper;
    • exams.
  2. For those assignments where Turnitin is used, all submissions to that assignment will be submitted to Turnitin.
  3. How we use the information provided by Turnitin:
    • Only academic staff will make a judgement on whether plagiarism has occurred in a piece of work. An academic may be guided by the originality report but Turnitin itself does not make the judgement;

    • We do not rely solely on a threshold percentage to identify whether plagiarism has occurred and may review any originality report in detail;

    • Turnitin will highlight matching text such as references, quotations, common phrases and data tables within work that has no plagiarism issues at all. Those interpreting Turnitin reports will discount such matches and so initial percentages are often irrelevant;
    • Where it is suspected that plagiarism has occurred in a piece of work, the originality report may be submitted to the

      to the Head of School (or delegated authority) and possibly to an Assessment Offences Panel for further investigation.

You may have a chance to view your Turnitin report before you submit the final version of your assignment; for guidance please see here.