P-ISSN: 2227-3883
E-ISSN: 2707-3025
POLICY ON PLAGIARISM
(As per HEC Guidelines)
In the wake of fundamental improvements being introduced in the system of Higher Education in Pakistan, the credit, respect, recognition of research and scholarly publications, career development and financial gains are now linked with such original works accomplished without replicating the efforts of other researchers. It has therefore become necessary that the menace of plagiarism is highlighted and curbed through exemplary punitive actions. On the other hand, we must also guard against bogus or false complaints in order to prevent victimization which may make researchers and scholars shy away from research simply because of the fear of prosecution. A Plagiarism Policy has therefore become necessary to create awareness, define various forms in which Plagiarism exhibits itself, present a methodology of investigation, cater for punitive action proportional to the extent of the offence and even address the issue of false or spurious complaints.
According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, Plagiarism is defined as "taking and using the thoughts, writings, and inventions of another person as one's own". This, or various similar definitions found in recognized publications / documents, are very broad and can be used to create awareness about Plagiarism but are not practical enough to apply in order to ascertain guilt or innocence in specific cases. In order to establish the violation of ethical norms, or academic or intellectual dishonesty resulting from Plagiarism and to take punitive actions in this regard, it is necessary that the variety of forms in which Plagiarism manifests itself are known. These include but are not limited to the following:
Within academia, plagiarism by students, professors, or researchers is considered academic dishonesty or academic fraud and offenders are subject to academic censure. In journalism, plagiarism is considered a breach of journalistic ethics, and reporters caught plagiarizing typically face disciplinary measures ranging from suspension to termination. While plagiarism in scholarship and journalism has a centuries-old history, the development of the Internet, where articles appear as electronic text, has made the physical act of copying the work of others much easier. Plagiarism is different from copyright infringement. While both terms may apply to a particular act, they emphasize different aspects of the transgression. Copyright infringement is a violation of the rights of the copyright holder, which involves the loss of income and artistic control of the material when it is used without the copyright holder's consent. On the other hand, plagiarism is concerned with the unearned increment to the plagiarizing author's reputation. In the academic world, plagiarism by students is a very serious academic offense which can result in punishments such as a failing grade on the particular assignment (typically at the high school level), or a failing grade for the course (typically at the college or university level). For cases of repeated plagiarism, or for cases where a student has Committed a severe type of plagiarism (e.g. copying an entire article and submitting it as his / her own work), a student may be suspended or expelled, and any academic degrees or awards may be revoked. For professors and researchers, who are required to act as role models for their students, plagiarism is a very serious offence, and is punishable by sanctions ranging from suspension to termination, along with the loss of credibility and integrity. Charges of plagiarism against students, faculty members and staff are typically heard by internal disciplinary committees, which students and faculty members have agreed to be bound by." Wikipedia also describes Self-plagiarism as "the re-use of significant, identical, or nearly identical portions of one‟s own work without acknowledging that one is doing so or without citing the original work. Typically, high public-interest texts are not a subject of self-plagiarism; however, the authors should not violate copyright where applicable. "Public-interest texts" include such material as social, professional, and cultural opinions usually published in newspapers and magazines."
implications and resulting punishments in case, after due investigation, they are found guilty of plagiarism. The institutions / organizations must acquaint their students, teachers, researchers and staff with this policy and ensure that they are fully aware that all authors are deemed to be individually and collectively responsible for the contents of papers published by Journals / Publishers etc. Hence, it is the responsibility of each author, including the coauthors, to ensure that papers submitted for publication should attain the highest ethical standards with respect to plagiarism. To facilitate the institutions / organizations in creating awareness about Plagiarism, a modified version of "Little Book of Plagiarism", a publication of Leeds Metropolitan University is appended as "Annexure" to this policy. Any University or Degree Awarding Institution which does not adopt and implement this policy will have its degree derecognized by HEC.
Therefore, the punishments for Plagiarism have been divided into two separate categories, i.e those for "Teachers, Researchers and Staff" and those for the "Students". The groups have already been defined in para 5 above.
THE PROVEN OFFENCE, will advise the Competent Authority of the Organization, to take any one or a combination of the following disciplinary action(s) against the teacher, researcher and / or staff found guilty of the offence:
In cases where most of the paper (or key results) have been exactly copied from any published work of other people without giving the reference to the original work, then (a) a major penalty of dismissal from service needs to be prescribed, along with (b) the offender may be “Black Listed” and may NOT be eligible for employment in any academic / research organization, and (c) the notification of “Black Listing” of the author(s) may be published in the print media or may be publicized on different websites at the discretion of the Vice-Chancellor / Rector / Head of the organization.
In case where some paragraphs including some key results have been copied without citation, then a moderate penalty involving any one or both of the following needs to be imposed
In case a few paragraphs have been copied from an external source without giving reference of that work, then minor penalties need to be prescribed for a specified period involving any one or more of the following:
In addition to the above punishments, the following additional common actions must be taken if the offence of Plagiarism is established:
Organization will inform the complainant‟s Organization and will recommend disciplinary action against the complainant, to be taken by his / her parent organization.
HIGHER EDUCATION COMMISSION OF PAKISTAN
(Monograph & Textbook Writing Scheme) Monograph / Textbook Proposal Submission Undertaking
Corresponding Author(s) name: Corresponding Author(s) Address: Title of Work:
The Higher Education Commission (Publisher) and the Monograph/Textbook Proposal Author (Authors if a multi authored Work) agree as the following:
All authors are requested to sign this form. If not signed by all authors, the corresponding author acknowledges thats/he is signing on behalf of all the authors and with their authorization. Faxed signatures and multiple forms are acceptable provided the corresponding author collates all the material and submits in one batch.
Author Signature: Name: Date:
Author Signature: Name: Date:
Publisher Signature: Name: Date:
The little book of Plagiarism-Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
This short booklet is designed to help students of National Defence University, Pakistan to understand what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.
What it is and how to avoid it
What is Plagiarism?
Everyone knows that plagiarism is something to be avoided, but not everyone is sure precisely what it is. This short booklet is designed to help students to understand more fully what plagiarism is, and equally important, how to avoid it.
Plagiarism is a specific form of cheating which is almost wholly found in respect of course assignments completed by students independently.
The University has a definition of plagiarism:
The substantial, unacknowledged incorporation into a student‟s work of material derived from the work (published or unpublished) of another. “Work” includes internet sources.
Examples of plagiarism include, but are not limited to:
The University has a definition of plagiarism:
Chambers Dictionary defines a plagiarist as a kind of thief – “one who steals the thoughts or writings of others and gives them out as his [sic] own”. When this is also used for gain – in the University to gain credits for a module or modules – then an additional dimension of dishonesty is added.
As the examples above show, plagiarism can take many forms. There are grey areas e.g. when is discussion with fellow students good practice and when does it become collusion? There are also degrees of plagiarism, from, for example, copying the whole of the assignment, to copying only part of it; or paraphrasing much of a source rather than copying the actual words used.
The key element of a submitted assignment is that (unless it is assessed as a group project) it should be your own work entirely. How can you tell? Try testing yourself against this declaration signed by students when they submit their assignments.
"I certify that this is my own work. The work has not, in whole or in part, been presented elsewhere for assessment. Where material has been used from other sources it has been properly acknowledged. If this statement is untrue I acknowledge that I will have committed an assessment offence.”
The rest of this short booklet gives you more information on plagiarism and how to avoid it.
There are many reasons why students plagiarize, for example:
Sometime ,of course plagiarism is determined and deliberate attempt to gain the credits for the course without doing the work
Whatever the reason, though, plagiarism is nevertheless cheating. It is not only cheating the University but, probably more importantly for your fellow students, it is cheating them. But there are more reasons that the negative ones (cheating others, unfairness, and possibly discovery and disciplinary action) for not plagiarising. Essentially, plagiarism is also cheating yourself and letting yourself down.
The Students Union at Leeds Met is whole-heartedly against the practice of plagiarism. It is well aware of the injustice of some students sitting up all night, possibly after working during the day, to complete an assignment; while others decide simply to try to download the answers from the internet. One makes a massive effort; the other makes no effort at all.
Pride in Your Work
Students should be able to take pride in their work and in the achievements they have attained. There is considerable satisfaction in knowing that the work you have submitted is your own, and the marks obtained reflect your own effort. There can be little real satisfaction in knowing that your mark (however good) was because you were a good cheat, rather than a good student.
Real Level of Attainment
It is possible that someone might plagiarize widely and not be discovered throughout their University career. But they will not really have learned anything. The discovery that their apparent attainment does not match their real abilities will then become apparent when they find a job. In the end this could lead to dismissal and the termination of a career.
UK Academic Traditions
It is important to recognize that plagiarism as described here is what is understood in UK Academic Institutions. Rules which may apply anywhere else are simply not relevant here. So, it is not valid to offer as a reason for plagiarism traditions which may operate elsewhere. Check the details of the next section to ensure that you are fully aware of what constitutes plagiarism in the UK so that you don‟t end up unwittingly being found to have plagiarized and therefore unable to be awarded any credits for your module or modules. If in doubt – ask your tutor before you submit the assignment!
Plagiarism takes many forms. Some of the more common are identified here.
This is where the student uses one of the following as the basis for the whole or a substantial part of the assignment
Note that this list is comprised of both published and unpublished sources. The first three are published, the second three are not. Plagiarism therefore is not copying from published sources only. It can also arise from the copying of unpublished sources like essays.
Where substantial copying takes place the words, arrangement of material and ideas are those of the source, not the student, and the work rarely answers the questions set. Where plagiarism is of this nature and extent it is very difficult to see how it could have been accidental, (especially if the text were derived from an essay bank or previous submission) and therefore it is viewed very seriously indeed. This kind of plagiarism is also increasingly detectable with modern software.
This is similar to the above, except that more than one source is used. A student obtains (say) 4 sources of information, and copies a sentence or group of sentences from A, then one from B, one from C and one from D and so on.
This is an example of plagiarism where a student might genuinely have thought that they were not doing anything wrong. The sources used might well have been cited in the bibliography, the essay might answer the question set, the organisation of the material may well be the student‟s own. However, this is still plagiarism.
Why? The reason is that although the structure and composition is the student‟s own work, the words are not. Rules of academic presentation require that whenever a direct quote from a source is used, this should be cited.
In this type of plagiarism no quotations are given in the text and thus the work is being dishonest about who actually wrote what. Further, the student‟s only contribution is cutting and pasting, which is not what the assignment was designed to assess, and there is no demonstration by the student concerned of the required skills of analysis, interpretation, judgment or opinion.
Unacceptable Excuses
sources, you copied from them, and did not use inverted commas to show that it was their words and not yours.
This is putting someone else‟s views into your own words, and this is one of the grey areas in plagiarism. To a certain extent any essay or assignment which relies on reading a series of texts as the basis of assignments will contain a significant amount of paraphrasing. There are two key things to remember in this case to ensure that it cannot be thought to be plagiarism:
This can occur when students work together, and it is very important to distinguish when this is required, and when it has to end.
Some assignments require students to work together as part of a group project. Where the group as a whole gets the mark then it is joint work throughout and the group co-operation is part of what is being assessed.
Some group projects, though, require students to work together at the planning stage, but then to submit individual assignments. Here the co-operation has to end at the point where you begin to compile your own individual submission, which must be your own work from this stage onwards.
A grey area is when students discuss their work together. A line needs to be drawn between legitimate discussions of the current assignment with student colleagues, especially where you share a house, and collusion. Where students share a house they
The important thing to remember is that (except on group projects where the group as a whole gets the mark) whilst general discussion of the issues involved, or approaches to be taken, is acceptable, the final submission must be your own individual effort. Discussion before the assignment is undertaken is one thing, discussion, correction and improvement during it is quite another and might lead to the suspicion of copying.
Also, remember that if you allow a fellow student to copy your work you will be considered as guilty of collusion as the actual copyist, and will be subject to the same penalties under the University Regulations.
In industry reuse of code is to be encouraged and both Web sites and books will provide numerous examples of code BUT you should realize that part of the purpose of doing a programming coursework is for you to develop your own skills. If most of your code comes from other sources then you will not be awarded a very high mark and also you will have learn very little.
It however you choose to make use of other people‟s code then in order to avoid an accusation of plagiarism, you must annotate your listing identifying the lines of code which are not your own. You must clearly state their source e.g. name of author, page in the book that you have taken the code from, web page address. Failing to reference work taken from the other sources is a plagiarism offence and will be dealt with as such.
Note that you will be awarded more marks for the code you write yourself, then the code you use from others. Obviously if you copy the entire program form someone else(and reference the work)you will be awarded zero as you have not made a contribution to your coursework solution.
It is your responsibility to credit all such material appropriately. You should be aware that copyright material must not be published (for example on a website)unless you have permission from the owner of the copyright.
The following good practice guidelines will help you to avoid plagiarism.
Remember that if you use the exact words in your source these should appear in quotation marks and be referenced by the book or article and the page on which the quote appears. Never use direct quotation from any source unless quotation marks are used and full references are given.
Try to use quotations sparingly. Use them only when the author has expressed something so well and so succinctly that you feel that the words cannot be bettered. If you do this you will probably reduce the number of your quotations and be aware of when you are quoting.
During note taking it is possible subconsciously to use the language of your source. Try to be aware of this when you are making notes. To avoid it, try not to make notes as you read, but read first, consider what the author has said, and then make notes. If you do this you will copy less of the text.
Remember here to attribute the broad ideas or content to the author in question. You will probably carry over some of their language, but as long as you are making it clear which sources you are using, and not attempting to pass it off as your own work then this should not arouse suspicion of plagiarism.
The more sources you look at, the less likely it is that you will seem to be repeating without acknowledgement the content of one of them. And if you take care when you are taking notes (see above) you will also reduce the chance of unacknowledged paraphrasing
You should cite all the sources you have used. Always cite any web sources used. If they have contributed to the completion of your assignment they are required to be listed just as much as printed books or articles.
If you only cite some, and the lecturer recognizes an extract from another source which has not been included in the bibliography, then you can expect that he or she will look very closely at the assignment in question.
Absence of source citation can very easily be seen as an attempt to prevent the lecturer possibly comparing your assignment text with that of the actual text used to check for the degree of similarity. If there is considerable similarity (either direct copying or paraphrasing) and you have not cited the work in question, then you might have some difficulty in convincing your lecturer that this was not done to try to conceal the plagiarism which has been identified.
Also, it is not good practice to pad out a bibliography with lots of titles which you have not read. Try to keep to those which you have actually consulted. A short list of well-used sources is much better than a long list of sources which you have never looked at.
How do I know when to include a reference in my work?
When you are writing an essay or completing a similar kind of assignment it is not always necessary to include a reference to everything you say. If that were so, your work would be more references than substance. When you give a reference is partly a matter of judgment, and conventions will vary from one discipline to another.
This example from an English history assignment gives a good indication of when you would and would not give a source reference. The sentence “The Battle of Hastings was fought in the south of England in 1066” would not need references to where you obtained the information, because it is very well known and is not contentious.
However, if you then wish to discuss the various opinions of historians on the conduct and outcome of that battle, then you should reference the source e.g. „Spring considers that the Norman tactics were misguided but ultimately successful (Spring, 1998) while Summer has long argued that it was only the exhaustion of the Anglo-Saxon forces which permitted the Norman victory (Summer, 1992).‟ You might then continue; „A more modern view has recently been expressed by Winter (2002) which regards both these
views as too simplistic and I want to consider her ideas in more detail here‟. Note here, the way that you have moved from simply stating what scholars might think about this battle, to how you are going to consider and deal with their views. In this part of the essay it will then be clear to what extent you have relied on the information and views in this particular source, and which views are your own.
Your Lecturer‟s Views
It is a common assumption that your lecturer wants you to repeat his or her views in your assignment, especially if these have been published in a book or article. Try to remember that this is not the case. All lecturers want you to use the sources suggested in the reading list (including their own if relevant), but they want you to use them constructively to answer the question, or complete the assignment. They do not want you simply to repeat the views contained in their own works.
The Textbook
If a lecturer recommends a textbook, then obviously he or she wants you to read it. But, as above, they do not want you to copy it out when completing an assignment. Once again, the idea is to use the information constructively. You want to show that you have understood the issues and concepts involved, but in order to show that you have understood them, there has to be clear input from you. This cannot be there if you simply copy out the text of the textbook, however good this is.
If it helps you to avoid doing this – remember that your lecturer will have read the textbook and will therefore be very likely to spot direct copying.
Collusion
To avoid suspicion of collusion you are advised to do the following:
two pieces of work it will lead the lecturer to wonder whether there has been collusion;
Copying from the Web or purchasing essays
There is only one simple piece of advice here – do not do this. You may know some fellow student who has done so and “got away with it”. However, remember, that such a student may not have similar “success” next time, and that even if he or she has been successful in passing off work which is not their own, it does not mean that you will be. Students who have been found to have downloaded or purchased work will not only automatically fail that module or modules, but will also seriously risk their career in the University being terminated by being required to withdraw from their course.
Conclusions
Plagiarism – identification
In this booklet we have tried to identify how students may plagiarize without being fully aware that they are doing so. In doing so we have also given you some indications of how lecturers might recognize that the work is not your own.
There are now various and increasingly sophisticated electronic aids to assist lecturers who may be in doubt about the originality of work submitted. These include programmes which look at linguistic similarities and others which can identify when essays have been bought from websites.
Essentially however clever web-packages or essay purchase schemes may be, there will be software which is able to detect it – and in such a case it is hard to imagine any acceptable explanation.
Regrettably, however, plagiarism does occur. The University does have penalties for students who plagiarize and it will use them. The relevant regulations and procedures will be used to investigate the suspicion of plagiarism and if plagiarism is held to have taken place, various penalties can be imposed, up to requiring a student to withdraw from the University.
Type of Offence Penalty
First minor offence e.g. unreferenced material, joint submission
Authors who let others have copies of their work
Coursework mark is set to Zero Coursework marks is set to Zero
Second offences will be referred to a panel Referred to Assessment Offences Panel-
student may be asked to leave the university
If more than one offence occurs at the same time
First major offence e.g. plagiarism bulk of project
All courses(not components)are set to Zereo
Referred to Assessment Offence Panel student may be asked to leave the university
We hope that this short booklet has assisted you both to identify what you should not do and helped you towards good practice which would avert the risk of plagiarism.
The best approach is to ensure that you have not plagiarized in the first place. The advice contained in this booklet will help you to do this.
If you feel in doubt, look again at the declaration at the start of the booklet. If you think you have not quite met the requirements of this kind of declaration – look at your work again before you submit it, and make sure that it is wholly your own work. If you still feel in doubt – ask your tutor before you submit the assignment.
If you follow this advice should be able to avoid any risk of the work being thought of as plagiarized and you will be able to take pride in achievements which have been produced by your effort alone.
Various detection programmes will be in use in the University from 2003, and on some modules all assignments will be automatically checked against one or more of these programmes.
Here are some key terms, which are explained in Quote, Unquote .
Citing Formally recognising in your text the source or sources from which you obtained the information. An example has already been given in this booklet on p. 7:
„Spring considers that the Norman tactics were misguided but ultimately successful (Spring, 1998) while Summer has long argued that it was only the exhaustion of the Anglo-Saxon forces which permitted the Norman victory (Summer, 1992).‟
Citation This is the act of quoting. It means the passage or words which you have directly taken from a source and reproduced in your text. The source of the quote should always be given with it.
Bibliography This is literally a list of books, but it now means a list of all the sources which you have used in completing the assignment, including electronic sources. Quote, Unquote gives examples of h
P-ISSN: 2227-3883
E-ISSN: 2707-3025