A definition of plagiarism

“Plagiarism is a specific form of cheating and is generally defined as presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own. These works or ideas may be in printed or electronic format…giving credit to the original authors by citing and referencing your sources is the only way to use other people’s work without plagiarising.”
Pears, R. and Shields, G. (2008) Cite them right: the essential  referencing guide.  Newcastle upon Tyne: Pear Tree Books.

Plagiarism is:

• The use of any source of information, published or unpublished, without proper acknowledgement.
• Quoting, summarising or paraphrasing material in your work without citing the source.
• Paying a fee (online or in person) for someone else’s work or downloading from free sites. 
• Cutting and pasting text.
• Copying someone else's work.
• Copying sections and just changing the odd word or phrase.
• Citing sources you did not use.
• Submitting the same piece of work for different assignments, even if they are for different tutors/lecturers.
• Unauthorised collaboration (collusion) with other students on a piece of work that requires individual work.

 
Common knowledge is acceptable, "this is generally defined as facts, dates, events and information that are expected to be known by someone studying or working in a particular field...for example, that Margaret Thatcher was a British Prime Minister". Pears, R. & Shields, G. (2008) Cite them right: the essential referencing guide.  Newcastle upon Tyne: Pear Tree Books.

How to avoid plagiarism

• Manage your time effectively, give yourself plenty of time to prepare and complete an assignment.
• Use the ideas of other sparingly.
• Keep accurate notes and include the citation information.
•  When using material from the internet make a note of the source and the date you accessed the page.
• Use quotation marks when directly stating another person's words and cite the source of the quote in your list of references.
• When paraphrasing, use words or a sentence structure different from the original work and acknowledge the source through in-text citation immediately following the paraphrase.
• Save all your notes, printouts etc until you receive your final mark or grade for the assignment.
• Reference correctly, follow the guidelines set by your department and see our referencing web pages for some useful advice.

Institutional policy

Penalties for plagiarism include amongst others:

• Reprimand on student record.
• Fail with chance to resubmit.
• Fail with no chance to resubmit.

You may also wish to look at the University's Unfair Practice Procedure.

The Turnitin UK Plagiarism Detection Service

The Turnitin UK service provides online access to a central detection facility at http://www.submit.ac.uk supported by iParadigms, a leading US supplier of plagiarism detection products. Swansea University is signed up to this service.  The Detection Service software (called Turnitin) searches for matching text between a paper submitted to the service and available information on the Internet or papers previously submitted to the database.  The standard method for submission is through our virtual learning environment, Blackboard. Students' can submit directly to Turnitin using submission entries created by instructors in Blackboard. Our web page Submitting to Turnitin UK Plagiarism Detection Service within Blackboard  and the Blackboard Support FAQ give further information about this.