Academic integrity and honesty: avoiding plagiarism in written work

Researching and reading ideas and viewpoints published in articles and books by other authors is integral to university and faculty studies. As we have explained in Chapter 4, you form your own response to your assignment task by reading and thinking about the research, ideas and findings from the experts in the field published in articles and books.

The ideas and viewpoints put forward by these authors are also the evidence and support that you require in your written response. Without the evidence and support from the ‘experts’, your response would not be acceptable academically.

It thus follows logically that you need to acknowledge and reference the supporting ideas and viewpoints in your writing. Failure to acknowledge and reference the source of others’ ideas and viewpoints is plagiarism, and this is treated seriously in academic studies. Avoiding plagiarism is an integral part of the respect for learning and research that the university fosters and depends upon for academic work to be worthwhile. As a student, you have an important role in maintaining the highest possible standards of academic honesty by avoiding plagiarism in all its forms. This is a learning process requiring work and diligence throughout your career as a student.

This chapter, read in conjunction, particularly, with Chapter 10 and Chapter 4 will provide a clear guide to ensuring you develop and maintain your academic honesty and integrity. In Chapter 10 we have provided guidance on referencing techniques. Following the explanation of plagiarism in this chapter, we explain how to summarise and paraphrase (put into your own words) the ideas and viewpoints that you read. Along with acknowledgement and correct referencing, this will help you avoid plagiarism in your written work by being able to clearly identify the different forms of plagiarism; know what is required of you in your work, particularly in relation to the use of other people’s work; and effectively summarise, paraphrase and incorporate others’ work, whilst making your own contribution to an existing field using correct and accurate referencing techniques.

Understanding and correctly practising these processes in your work will not happen in an instant. Many students will not have been introduced to these ideas and concepts before. Your job is to work to understand and practise the processes outlined in this chapter and guide, and seek help from tutors, learning support services, unit coordinators and other students if you are unclear, or have any questions about anything outlined.

9.1 What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism occurs when writers claim ownership of written words or ideas which are not their own. It is ‘stealing’ the intellectual property of other writers and is not allowed in the university.

If you copy texts without acknowledging the source of information, disciplinary action may result and you could be suspended or excluded from the University.

There are two ways of acknowledging a source:

• if you are quoting the exact words (a string of perhaps five or more words) of another writer, then these words should be identified and the source acknowledged and referenced
• if you are using the ideas or views (but not the exact words) of another writer, these must also be acknowledged and referenced – typically this reference will appear following the expression of the idea or viewpoint of another writer.

It is important to point out that simply copying slabs of information or sentences from texts, even if the source of the information is referenced, is not a proper way of writing essays or reports. Although it is not plagiarism, it is academically unacceptable.

Examples of plagiarism include:

• copying another person’s work without correct referencing. This includes copying from a book, a journal article, a web site or another student’s assignment/s;
• copying from notes distributed by the tutor or from slideshows without correct referencing;
• paraphrasing another person’s work with minor changes, but keeping the meaning, flow of argument or ideas the same as the original without correct referencing;
• cutting and pasting another person’s work into a new document and passing it off as your own; • submitting an assignment which has already been submitted for assessment in another unit;
• presenting an assignment as independent work when it has been produced in collusion with other students (where this was not specified as a group project).

Plagiarism also relates to students copying or basing their written work on that of other students. Of course, students often work together in order to clarify understandings and test out their ideas before they establish their individual responses to topics; this is acceptable practice. If you are not clear about how collaborative work should be presented, talk to your lecturer or tutor. However, unless indicated otherwise in the unit outline, the piece of work submitted for assessment must be your own response and must be your own work.

9.2 Monash University Statute 4.1 and policy regarding plagiarism

University Statute 4.1 – Discipline and the policy regarding plagiarism govern the penalties and procedures when a piece of work is identified as suspected plagiarism or cheating.

Statute 4.1 – Discipline can be found at: http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/calendar/statutes/Statute04.html

Plagiarism Policy can be found at: http://www.policy.monash.edu/policy-bank/academic/education/conduct/plagiarism-policy.html

Definitions as set out by University Policy

Plagiarism – means “to take and use another person’s ideas and or manner of expressing them and to pass them off as one’s own by failing to give appropriate acknowledgement.”

Cheating – means “seeking to obtain an unfair advantage in an examination or in other written or practical work required to be submitted or completed by a student for assessment.”

Collusion – means the “unauthorised collaboration on assessable work with another person or persons” which constitutes cheating.

Re-submission of work – where “work submitted for assessment, which has previously been submitted in another unit without disclosure of the fact”, is considered as cheating.

“Plagiarism occurs when students fail to acknowledge that the ideas of others are being used.” Specifically it occurs when:

• other people’s work and/or ideas are paraphrased and presented without a reference; • other students’ work is copied or partly copied;
• other people’s designs, codes or images are presented as the student’s own work;
• phrases and passages are used verbatim without quotation marks and/or without a reference to the author or a web page;
• lecture notes are reproduced without due acknowledgment. If the plagiarism is:
• done intentionally, that is, the student knew that he/she should have cited the source and deliberately failed to do so, the student has cheated;
• not intentional, the only offence the student has committed is the academic misdemeanour of failing to reference a source correctly. The matter should, therefore, be treated in the normal manner i.e. as a case of poor referencing and poor academic work, and be marked accordingly and an academic penalty may be applied.

9.2.1 What happens when plagiarism is suspected?

A work of assessment that is suspected of plagiarism will be reported to the chief examiner for the unit. The chief examiner must decide whether the plagiarism amounts to cheating. A student found to have plagiarised will be provided with the opportunity to respond.

If the chief examiner decides there is no finding of cheating, the assessment will be marked appropriately. In some cases the chief examiner may require the student to attend a meeting with the chief examiner to discuss the issue of plagiarism, and a warning letter may be issued to the student.

If the chief examiner determines there is evidence to support the finding of cheating, the student will be given an opportunity to respond to the allegation and discuss the matter with the chief examiner before a decision is made.

Where the chief examiner decides that cheating has occurred, the chief examiner must either

The chief examiner can also make a request to check the Plagiarism register to see if a student has received any prior warnings or an outcome that has resulted from disciplinary action for plagiarism.

If the chief examiner decides to take action, he/she must:

• disallow the work concerned by prohibiting assessment (that piece of assessment is not to be marked and must receive zero marks); and
• inform the student in writing that the marks have been disallowed and that he/she has the right to appeal the disallowance; and
• inform the Associate Dean (Education) and the Faculty Secretariat of the disallowance.

The record of the disciplinary action will be recorded on the Plagiarism register.

A record of an accusation on the Plagiarism register will be retained while the student is enrolled or intermitted in any course and academic staff will have access to this information when considering any subsequent allegations of plagiarism.

9.2.2 Students’ responsibility

9.3 Using references appropriately in your written work

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, in presenting your response to a topic, you are expected to review the literature in the field and incorporate the views of other authors, as expressed in articles and books. In this sense, the authors’ views expressed in the literature are used to build up your case. You must formulate your own structure for your writing in response to a topic rather than relying solely on other authors’ views. The source of the words or ideas used to support, and as evidence for, your response must always be acknowledged.

When you survey the literature concerning your topic and formulate responses to assignment tasks and topics, you are participating in academic enquiry. The views expressed in the literature for a particular area are not fixed and unchanging. Rather, as authors’ published views are constantly challenged and disputed by other writers, the knowledge in the field evolves. You must be aware of this process as you structure your response to their topics and incorporate the views from the literature.

The views of authors expressed in the literature are significant as you respond to your assignment topic. Before forming the structure for your response to the topic, you need to thoroughly overview the field so that you are aware of the findings of the writers in the field. You must frame your response in the context of the topic which you are writing on. In so doing, you can either draw on the literature to support or substantiate your structure or, if the views expressed in the literature differ from your structure, indicate how it is still valid despite the differences.

9.4 Use of references in writing

9.4.1 Unsuitable use of references

The following sample paragraph for a management topic consists of a string of direct quotations and paraphrases. In this case the writer has failed to demonstrate knowledge of the literature and key concepts beyond the ability to look up relevant texts and journals. That is, there is no comment from the writer, either at the beginning of the paragraph, the end, or throughout the paragraph.

The referencing is also inadequate because the dates have not been included. Also, it is inappropriate to refer to lecture notes because there are no records of spoken comments for others to consult and verify.

Example 1:

• Organisations operating under rational-legal authority are marked by division of labour, hierarchy, rules and regulations and impersonal relationships (Robbing, ? p.36). This type of authority “allows supervision and control of a large number of individuals engaged in a common objective or task, maximising coordination and organisational efficiency” (MGC Lecture Notes, 2005). “Control is concerned with the methods employed by the organisation to ensure that people perform their tasks in ways which are seen as desirable from the viewpoint of the organisation” (Robbing,? p. 569).

However, if direct quotations are incorporated in a way which indicates that the writer has grasped the key concepts in the literature, it is vital that the writer indicates that these are exact words from the text by using quotation marks and then indicating their source, whether through the author-date or documentary note methods of citation outlined in Chapter 10. However, direct quotations must be used sparingly. Also, even if the ideas from the text are written in your own words, the source must still be indicated.

Always include quotation marks and acknowledge the source of the text in the body of the paragraph. It is not appropriate to leave out quotation marks and paragraph referencing, even if the source is listed in the bibliography.

9.5 Suitable integration of references

9.5.1 Techniques for using an author’s ideas

From the above examples, it is clear that you need to use references in a way which is based on your own thoughts and interpretation of other authors’ work.

By learning to summarise, you can avoid having to resort to paraphrasing and the overuse of direct quotations. Summarising forces you to reduce others’ work to their key points and to capture the essence of their work. The process of eliminating unnecessary detail from the original work forces you to express the material in your own words. You can then include your own comments, demonstrating your interpretation of the work.

The following approach will assist you to summarise passages:

• read and understand fully the passage;
• write out the main ideas, without the details;
• consider these points as a whole and the purpose for using the summary in relation to the structure in the written piece, that is, make an interpretation of the work. For example, it may not be necessary for the points in the summary to follow the same sequence as in the original passage;
• encapsulate the main ideas from the original passage and the interpretation as if telling someone the essence. Of course jargon or a subject’s specialised vocabulary does not have to be changed.

Example 3:

• Original source: Williams, A., Dobson, P. & Walters, M. (1989). Changing culture: new oganisational approaches. London: The Institute of Personnel Management, p. 14.
• Culture is learnt. Individual beliefs, attitudes and values are gained from the individual’s environment. The culture of the oganisation is therefore gained from the environment common to its members. Both the internal and the external environment of the organisation influence culture.
• The internal environment comprises the social and technical systems of the organisation. Thus, in part, culture is the product of these socio-technical systems. They comprise the decision-making, planning and control procedures of the organisation, its technology, the procedures for recruitment, selection and training, and the behaviour of other members – in particular, that of the manager and the workgroup. Culture has its roots as much in beliefs about the demands of the work environment as it does in the personal attitudes and values of individuals.

Externally, the organisation is embedded in social, political, legislative, economic and technological systems. These represent the external environment of the organisation. Those operating in different sectors have different markets, technologies and legal constraints. They have different skill and resource needs. These variations place different demands on organisations and create differing learning environments.

9.5.2 A summary

Example 4:

The writer has made a clear interpretation of the original passage. The order of the ideas has been changed, probably because the information concerning the role and nature of environments is required as evidence in the written piece, and so this is the focus taken in the student’s interpretation of the original passage. Most of the details included in the original have also been eliminated so that only the essence of the passage is captured.

9.5.3 Paraphrasing, or writing in your own words

In some subjects, where you are required to deal with set facts in definitions, statutes or Accounting Standards, it may be necessary to paraphrase or write these in your own words. The following steps will assist you with paraphrasing.

After locating the information to be included in the written piece:

• read the passage several times to understand fully the meaning;
• identify and underline the key words and ideas in the passage;
• write out the key points and think of synonyms for the concepts embedded in these words and phrases in the passage. (Remember, however, that if the key words are specialised vocabulary for the subject or jargon, they do not need to be changed);
• use the synonyms or alternate forms of expression as the framework for the paraphrase and write the paraphrase as if relating to someone the content of the passage;
• consider the role played by the paraphrased passage in relation to comments you are making. Indicate for the reader the nature of the role.

The following is an original quotation and one way that it could be paraphrased; the main ideas to be included in the paraphrase are displayed in italics in the original. In the example paraphrase, the writer’s comment is at the beginning.

Example 5:

• Original source: Williams, A., Dobson, P. & Walters, M. (1989). Changing culture: new oganisational approaches. London: The Institute of Personnel Management, p. 20.
• Organisational cultures vary according to the nature of the beliefs, values, and attitudes that are commonly held. These reflect differences in society, history and function.
• A Paraphrase: As explained by Williams et al. (1989, p. 20), just as beliefs, attitudes and values which express how different society’s history and function differ, so too do organisational cultures.

The main ideas have been incorporated in the paraphrase and the organisation of the original has been changed. In the original, the idea expressed in the first sentence is followed by another idea in the second sentence, whereas in the paraphrase, these two ideas are balanced against each other in one sentence. Even though the author’s idea has been expressed in the student’s own words, the source of the idea must be referenced.