The University Regulations (Section 8: point 9) define ‘unfair practice’ as ‘any act whereby a person may obtain for himself/herself or for another, an unpermitted advantage. This shall apply whether candidates act alone or in conjunction with another/others. An action or actions shall be deemed to fall within this definition whether occurring during, or in relation to, a formal examination, a piece of coursework, or any form of assessment undertaken in pursuit of an academic or professional qualification at the University of Wales, Swansea’.

An example of unfair practice in non-examination conditions is ‘plagiarism’. This is defined as ‘using without acknowledgement another person’s work and submitting it for assessment, as though it were one’s own work, for instance through copying or unacknowledged phrasing’.

Examples of plagiarism given in the regulations include:  

• ‘Use of any quotation(s) from the published or unpublished work of other persons which have not been clearly identified as such by being placed in quotation marks and acknowledged’.
• ‘Summarising another person’s ideas, judgments, figures, software or diagrams without reference to that person in the text and the source in the bibliography’
• ‘Use of the service of ‘ghost-writing’ agencies in the preparation of assessed work’.
• ‘Use of unacknowledged material downloaded from the internet’.
• ‘Submission of another student’s work as your own’.
• ‘To reproduce material, without acknowledgement, that has been used in other work/assessment for your degree programme (self-plagiarism)’.

This department has recently become aware of the issue of student plagiarism and its extent and takes such unfair practice extremely seriously as a breach of the University Regulations. Students are warned that:

• The University intends to employ anti-plagiarism software to detect unfair practice in student submissions.
• Lecturers in this department are alert to the issue of plagiarism and will actively search for it in every essay that causes suspicion.
• This department will pursue the formal prosecution within the University Regulations of all cases where plagiarism is suspected.
• A number of prosecutions have already been carried out within this department for unfair practice on the grounds of plagiarism and penalties have been implemented for those found guilty.

Please note that University regulations do not distinguish between intentional and unintentional plagiarism, e.g. between deliberate copying and those who simply do not understand the referencing and bibliographic systems the department requires students to follow. All students receive handouts explaining the necessity of employing a referencing and bibliographic system (preferably the Harvard system) and students are entirely responsible for ensuring that they implement this properly in their work. 

A clear procedure exists for the prosecution of suspected unfair practice. The penalties that can be imposed upon a student that has been found guilty range from the issuance of a formal verbal or written reprimand to the cancellation of student’s marks for the assignment, for the module, for all modules in the level of study, and the disqualification of the candidate from any future university examination or any other ‘appropriate penalty’ decided by the committee.

Any student worried about any aspect of this warning is advised to discuss their work with the module tutor before handing it in.  

 If you organise your work in advance module tutors are usually available in their office to check your academic writing, referencing and bibliography.