Referencing and Unfair Means
Referencing
All written work needs to be accurately referenced using the Harvard Referencing System. There is lots of support available at the University – both online and via workshops at 301. Referencing practices will also be covered in your teaching sessions particularly in the Academic Literacy and Communication Skills (ALCS) module.
Plagiarism
Everything you submit for assessment must be your own work. Of course you will use and build on work that other people have done, but you must give them credit by referencing their work correctly. You will be shown how to do this, and if you have any questions, ask your personal tutor. There are also many resources available to support you with referencing, including online support resources and the Writing Advisory Service at the University.
Using other people’s work, or material taken from websites or any other sources, without referencing it properly is called plagiarism. This is an academic offence because it is a form of cheating – passing off someone else’s work as your own. The University has guidelines on plagiarism and unfair means which you can find here: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/unfair-means
The University’s definitions of unfair means are as follow:
Plagiarism (either intentional or unintentional) is the using of ideas or work of another person (including experts and fellow or former students) and submitting them as your own. It is considered dishonest and unprofessional. Plagiarism may take the form of cutting and pasting, taking or closely paraphrasing ideas, passages, sections, sentences, paragraphs, drawings, graphs and other graphical material from books, articles, internet sites or any other source and submitting them for assessment without appropriate acknowledgement.
Submitting bought or commissioned work (for example from internet sites, essay “banks” or “mills”) is an extremely serious form of plagiarism. This may take the form of buying or commissioning either the whole piece of work or part of it and implies a clear intention to deceive the examiners. The University also takes an extremely serious view of any student who sells, offers to sell or passes on their own assessed work to other students.
Double submission (or self plagiarism) is resubmitting previously submitted work on one or more occasions (without proper acknowledgement). This may take the form of copying either the whole piece of work or part of it. Normally credit will already have been given for this work.
Collusion is where two or more students work together to produce a piece of work, all or part of which is then submitted by each of them as their own individual work. This includes passing on work in any format to another student. Collusion does not occur where students involved in group work are encouraged to work together to produce a single piece of work as part of the assessment process.
Fabrication is submitting work (for example, practical or laboratory work) any part of which is untrue, made up, falsified or fabricated in any way. This is regarded as fraudulent and dishonest.
Facilitating the use of unfair means is where any student assists a fellow student in using any of the forms of unfair means defined above, for example in submitting bought or commissioned work.
If you have any questions on what any of the above might mean for you, please do ask a tutor - it could be your personal tutor or the module tutor for a particular piece of work.
When submitting any work for assessment, you will make a declaration that all work submitted is your own. All your coursework will be submitted through Turnitin, which scans it to find material reproduced from other sources, including websites and unpublished work. If you have used the material appropriately and referenced it correctly, then there is no problem – we like to see students use and build on other people’s work. However, if copied material is not properly referenced, or worse, if there is no attempt to reference or acknowledge it, this will be treated as a possible case of plagiarism.
The above also applies to the use of ChatGPT or other AI software to write university assessments. Doing so is strictly prohibited by the University of Sheffield. Not only is this not a student's own work, but what is produced is often incorrect, out-of-date, biased, or misleading. It is easily detectable both through the independent assessor and Turnitin.
Within DLL we understand that students are new to referencing and we do not expect you to get it perfect first time. We do however expect that you will make an attempt to give credit where it is due. Any cases of suspected plagiarism will be investigated and the student called in for an interview to explain what has happened. If it is plagiarism, the department can impose penalties which can include withholding of a grade for the piece of work. If this happens you will have to re-sit the assignment, and a fee would be payable for the re-sit. More serious or repeated instances of plagiarism would result in stronger penalties, the most severe of which is expulsion from the University.
Generative AI Search Tools
While the university does not condone the use of AI tools such as ChatGPT to produce assessed work, it is a useful tool itself for referencing. Your tutor may direct you towards this software. The supported AI tool at the University of Sheffield is Google Bard, one of the Google apps available to all staff and students. Generative AI can be useful if you are looking for an overview of a topic, a starting point for a search, or the definition of an unfamiliar term. However, it is very important to double check any findings in order to ensure that they are factually correct. This will prevent any errors translating into your assessed work, and is good academic practice. You should only cite credible sources that you have read and verified yourself.
More information cab be found at:
The Library Guide on Generative AI Literacy: a guide to taking a critical approach to GenAI via this link.
Generative AI in Assessment: a practical guide to using AI in your studies via this link.