
Types of plagiarism
There are many different ways to plagiarise but the most common ones that students have problems with are: collusion, copy and paste, word switch, misinterpreting common knowledge, concealing sources, and self-plagiarism.
Collusion
- If a student allows another student to copy their work and that student then presents the work as their own, both students are deliberately trying to deceive the lecturer who is marking their work. This is known as collusion.
- Students often have to work together in groups. When doing this they share ideas, research and have a joint responsibility for the development of the project. However, the assignment to this work should be written independently. Identical assessments will be considered as collusion.
Copy and Paste
This is when a student copies a piece of work from the internet, an electronic book, journal or word document and pastes it into their assignment, without acknowledging the source. If they copy and paste work they should always use quotation marks and reference it appropriately.
Word switch
If a student copies a sentence or paragraph into their assignment and changes a few words it will still be classed as plagiarism. It is better to encourage the students to paraphrase than to quote wherever possible.