Understandingreferencing and plagiarismMSc Civil & Environmental Engineering

Edyta Krol

Academic Support Librarian

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February 2014

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February 2014

Referencing is

‘an acknowledgement of someone else’s work or findings’

Dunbar (2007)

• Acknowledge sources• Demonstrate breadth of reading• To give your work scholarly credibility• To allow you, you tutor and other readers to

retrieve the documents cited• To signpost to the reader that this idea is not

your own• To avoid accusations of plagiarism

Why do we need to reference?

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Whenever you draw on a source of information:

• As a general source of inspiration

• As the source of a particular theory, argument or

viewpoint

• For specific information such as statistics, case

studies or examples

• For direct quotations

• For text you have paraphrased or summarised

When to reference

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• Copying another person’s work, including the work of

another student (with or without their consent), and

claiming or pretending it is your own

• Presenting arguments that use a blend of your own and a

significant percentage of copied words of the original author

without acknowledging the source

• Paraphrasing another person’s work, but not giving due

acknowledgement to the original author

Neville, C. (2007) The complete guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism.

Maidenhead: Open University Press

What is plagiarism?

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• A form of plagiarism where two or more students work together

to produce a piece of work which is then submitted by each of

them as their own individual work

• If a student gets someone else to compose the whole or part of

any piece of work

• If a student copies the whole or part of someone else's piece of

work with their knowledge and consent

• If a student allows another student to copy material, knowing

that it will subsequently be presented as that student's own

work

Collusion

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• To get a better grade – 59%

• Laziness or bad time management – 54%

• Easy access to material via the Internet – 40%

• They do not understand the rules – 29%

• ‘It happens unconsciously’ - 29%

• They do not think they will be caught – 16%

Dordoy, A. (2002) Cheating and plagiarism: staff and student perceptions at

Northumbria. Working paper presented at Northumbrian Conference: ‘Educating for

the Future’, Newcastle 22 Oct. 2003

Why do students plagiarize?

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•Plagiarism

•Collusion

•Other kinds of cheating??

Academic dishonesty

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Do not even think about it!

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You need to know about:

• Identifying sources and information that need to be

documented

• Using material gathered from sources: summary, paraphrase

and quotation

• Staying loyal to the source material

• Creating in-text citation

• Blending quotations into your paper

• Documenting sources in Reference list

How to avoid plagiarism

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•The author’s words are copied exactly –

‘verbatim’

•Quotation marks (“…”) are added – where quote

begins and ends

•You need the author’s surname,

year of publication and page number

in brackets at the end

Direct Quotation

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Quotation marks

 

“When you make a claim about the way things are in

the world, you must offer the reader evidence and say

where it comes from.” (Northedge 1999, p. 191)

 

Author’s surname Year of publication Page number

 

Example

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Direct quotes are useful when...

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The content is complicated and you cannot express yourself as well as the

source

You want to analyse or discuss/challenge a quotation

You want to finish your essay with a particularly good quote which sums up argument or start with one which raises

debate

•Writing out evidence in your own words

•You still need to put a reference

•Author’s surname, date of publication are

required

• Its meaning is not changed

Paraphrasing

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Topic sentence

 

Many study skills guides include useful advice for helping

a student insert references in his/her essay. For example,

Northedge (1991) states that when you are presenting a

point of view, you must support this with evidence and

provide a reference.

 author surname date of publication paraphrased information to support

statement

Example

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•Many find it difficult

•Not a case of just changing a few words

•You need to understand what you have read

•Take notes from books

•Use notes to put things into your own words

•Do not copy out whole sentences

How to paraphrase

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Paraphrasing thoughts

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Your work flows better if you learn to put different authors’ ideas in your own

words

You can use some key words and phrases but the key is understanding

meaning and significance

Be careful not to change the odd word here or there. Direct quote if you can

not paraphrase

Always use a reference

1. What is the difference between references and

a bibliography?

Some common issues

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February 2014

Reference List

Bibliography

•The same format as a Reference List

•Includes all material used in the preparation of your work

Includes only sources cited in the text of your assignment as in-text citations

2. How do I reference a source I found in a book

or article but I haven’t actually read it myself?

In text citation:

Ivan Illich (1981), as summarized by Sherman (1995) has

suggested… OR

Sherman (1995) refer to the work of Ivan Illich (1981), that

suggest…

Reference List:

Sherman, B. (1995) Licensed to Work. London: Cassell

Some common issues

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3. Referencing several authors who have

expresses a similar view

If you want to show that a number of authors hold a similar view

for something which you have paraphrased, you can simply list

them all with the date of publication

Example

It has often been argued that motivating staff is key to business

success (Smith 2004; Jones 2009; Wilson 2010)

Some common issues

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February 2014

4. How do I reference standards?

Example

BS 5605:1990 (1999). Citing and referencing published materials.

London: British Standard Institution.

ISO 14001:2004. Environmental management systems. Geneva:

International Organization for Standardization.

Some common issues

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February 2014

5. How do I reference a web page?

Try to find an author and year – as you would for a book.

Example - in text citation

“50 years after being published, To Kill a Mockingbird is still devoured by

students” (Geoghegan, 2010)

  Example - in List of References

Geoghegan, T. (2010) Why is to Kill a Mockingbird so popular? [Online].

Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8740693.stm

[Accessed: 14 February 2013]

Some common issues

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•Never cite the URL. Always put the name of an

author, or the organization

•Do not separate list of www sites in your

“References”. Internet sites are incorporated

alphabetically along with other sources

•Do not paste in a URL address to a list of

“References” without any other supporting

information

Web sites – Common mistakes

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1. In-text citation

Example

Northedge (1999) argues that students need to be introduces early

to good study skills.

2. List of references

Example

Northedge, A. (1999) The Good Study Guide. Milton Keynes: Open

University Press

Two kinds of references - recap

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Recording references

•Record the full details of all resources you use during your research for any assignments and projects - use screen capture functions if possible, or photocopy

•Databases / Summon/Library Catalogue provide tools to save, email or export to reference management software

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• Consistent and accurate

• Use a particular style

University of West London has adopted the:

In-text Citations and References

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UWL Harvard

Referencing Style

The University subscribes to RefWorks which

allows you to build ‘libraries’ of references and

also create reference lists or bibliographies

already formatted in UWL Harvard and in

alphabetical order.

Using referencing software

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• Advice offered by Academic Support Librarians

• FAQ available on Library website

• Printed and online guides

• Help with enquires

Online

By phone

In person – Help Zone

Help Available

February 2014

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