In short, unfair means refers to cheating. It involves any attempt by a student to:
gain unfair advantage over another student in the completion of an assessment or exam; or
assist someone else in gaining an unfair advantage.
You will face disciplinary action if we find you using unfair means.
There are four main types of unfair means:
Plagiarism: when you accidentally or knowingly submit someone else’s work or ideas as your own without proper acknowledgement. This includes submitting your own previously assessed work.
Essay buying: when you buy or commission part or a whole piece of work from another student or an essay-writing website and submit it as your own.
Collusion: when you work with someone else, or a group of others, on a piece of assessed work that you are supposed to be completing by yourself.
Fabrication: when you submit made-up/untrue information.
For more information on how to prevent unfair means, how to appeal, and our University Regulations, please visit:
www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/unfair-means
https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/rs/code/plagiarism
When preparing essays, projects or other coursework, you will read widely and become familiar with the work of others. You should ensure that the materials you prepare for submission would be accepted as your own original work. A member of staff who is assessing your work is interested in your understanding of the material, and you should use your own words to demonstrate your understanding. The selective quoting of material from books and articles is permissible, but the material must always be attributed to its sources. Any passages reproduced from other sources must be enclosed within quotation marks and the sources must be acknowledged in the adjacent text, and the sources must also be included in the reference list. Any illustrations taken from other sources must be acknowledged in the legends of the relevant illustrations, and the sources must be included in the reference list. Cutting and pasting from web sites would also be considered unacceptable.
The basic principle underlying the preparation of any piece of academic work is that the work submitted must be your own original work. Plagiarism and collusion are not allowed because they go against this principle. Please note that the rules about plagiarism and collusion apply to all assessed and non-assessed work, including essays, experimental results and computer code.
Obviously plagiarism is particularly relevant to Project Reports, Literature Reviews and the Level 1 and Level 2 Long Essays. When you submit each of these pieces of work, it must be accompanied by a standard signed statement that you understand the meaning of plagiarism and that the work submitted is your own. You will be required to submit some pieces of work both as a hard copy, which we shall mark, and as a PDF file, which we will scan using plagiarism detection software. If we find discrepancies between the hard copy and the PDF file, you may be penalised severely for cheating.
Plagiarism is passing off others’ work as your own, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to your benefit. The work can include ideas, compositions, designs, images, computer code, and, of course, words. This list is not exhaustive. The benefit accrued could be, for example, an examination grade.
If a student submits a piece of work produced by others, or copied from another source, this is plagiarism.
If a student produces a piece of work which includes sections taken from other authors without attribution, this is plagiarism. The length of the copied section is not relevant, since any act of plagiarism offends against the general principle set out above. When copying sections from other authors it is not sufficient simply to list the source in the bibliography or reference list.
The selective quoting of material from books and articles is permissible, but the material must always be attributed to its sources, both within the text and within a bibliography. However, in general, extensive use would not be acceptable, even if acknowledged.
If a student paraphrases from another source without the appropriate attribution, this is plagiarism. Paraphrasing should use a student’s own words to demonstrate an understanding and accurately convey the meaning of the original work, and should not merely reorder or change a few words or phrases of the existing text.
If a student copies from or resubmits his or her own previous work for another assignment, this is self-plagiarism, and is not acceptable.
Collusion is a form of plagiarism where two or more people 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.
If a student gets someone else to compose the whole or part of any piece of work, this is collusion.
If a student copies the whole or part of someone else’s piece of work with the knowledge and consent of the latter, then this is collusion.
If a student allows another student to copy material, knowing that it will subsequently be presented as that students’ own work, then this is collusion.
If two or more students work on an assignment together, produce an agreed piece of work and then copy it up for individual submission, then this is collusion. When producing a piece of work arising out of group work, you will be given clear advice regarding the acceptable limits of collaboration.
Both plagiarism and collusion are strictly forbidden. Students are warned that the piece of work affected may be given a grade of zero, which in some cases will entail failure in the examination for the relevant unit or research degree. The student may also be referred to the Discipline Committee.
In general, we are happy for you to discuss the subject of an essay or project with fellow students in general terms, or to quote very occasionally from your sources in the work submitted. If you are in any doubt about the guidance you have received for a particular piece of work, you should consult the member of academic staff responsible for the relevant module.