Plagiarism and Use of Unfair Means
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Plagiarism and use of unfair means
The Department of Philosophy takes the use of unfair means very seriously. Use of unfair means includes plagiarism, double submission (self-plagiarism), submitting bought or commissioned work, fabrication and facilitating the use of unfair means by another student.
Students should consult the University of Sheffield's guidance for students on the use of unfair means in assessment available via https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/ssid/exams/plagiarism. Students will be asked to sign a plagiarism declaration form with assessments to demonstrate a clear understanding of those materials.
Guidance primarily for staff - but useful for students too - setting out action to be taken around the suspected use of unfair means and giving indications of penalties for the use of unfair means is available at https://staff.sheffield.ac.uk/apo/unfair-means. Penalties applied may include the reduction of marks by a fixed amount, the requirement that work be redone (in some cases redone in its entirety) in order to be given a mark for a module, which in some cases may be capped at 40, and referral to Student Services for action under the University's discipline regulations.
The Department of Philosophy consults Turnitin reports as a matter of course when dealing with written work. Turnitin detects plagiarism and other forms of unfair means by cross-referencing assessments against other written pieces of work. However, this is not the only means for detecting and dealing with plagiarism: experience shows that Turnitin reports do not always give the full story where use of unfair means is concerned.
It is not uncommon for students to receive penalties for use of unfair means which could have easily been avoided through improved study skills such as appropriate referencing, quotation and paraphrasing. The University library provides excellent resources to help with this via https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/study/workshops.
The following examples of unfair means are serious academic offences and may result in severe penalties, up to and including expulsion from the University.
Examples of Unfair Means
Plagiarism, intentional or otherwise
Is using the ideas or work of another person (including experts and other students) without proper acknowledgement. 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 (including lecture handouts) and submitting them for assessment without appropriate acknowledgement.
Submitting bought or commissioned work
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 assignment 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 assignments to other students.
Double submission
Self-plagiarism is resubmitting work for which credit has already been given (without proper acknowledgement). This may take the form of copying either the whole assignment or part of it.
Collusion
Is where 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. This includes passing on work in any format to another student. It is not collusion when students involved in group work are encouraged to work together to produce a single piece of work as part of the assessment process. Nor is it collusion for student to discuss their ideas among themselves or read each other’s drafts - though if you end up using an idea you owe to another student, you should acknowledge this in the essay.
A University tutorial on what counts as plagiarism and how to avoid it is available here: https://librarydevelopment.group.shef.ac.uk/shef-only/info_skills/plagiarism.html.
Artificial Intelligence [AI]
If you haven't heard about generative AI such as ChatGPT4, it is an emerging technology that can produce text, images or other media in response to user queries. However, the chances are you have heard about it, as it's been quite a hot topic over recent weeks. You may have even used it to see what all the fuss is about, and if so, will have discovered that whilst the AI technology is good, it does have flaws.
If you were to use it to produce work for submission, you would be using unfair means as defined by the university policy. That's because, in the same way that using Essay Mills to produce work is, you would be passing off work you haven't generated as your own and it would not be reflective of your skills and knowledge. This is also something that is ultimately discoverable by the University, and dealt with under unfair means processes.
The overwhelming majority of our students don't and wouldn't use unfair means. We know that the majority of students recognise that the value of a degree course comes from what knowledge you gain and what skills you develop, for example: critical thinking, research methods, analysis, and independent thought.
These skills are what you will build on and use for the rest of your life. When put together with hard work, they are often the key to personal success. The very few students who have used unfair means have deprived themselves of opportunities to build these skills.
The University The University Library, 301 Academic Skills Centre, and the English Language Teaching Centre have developed guidance and resources to support students in using GenAI tools positively and ethically in their studies.
- The Library Guide on Generative AI Literacy: a guide to taking a critical approach to GenAI - https://sheffield.libguides.com/genai
- Generative AI in Assessment: a practical guide to using AI in your studies - http://shef.ac.uk/academic-skills/generative-ai-assessment
For the few students who look to use unfair means of any type, it's often because they are finding things difficult. If you feel you are struggling with an assessment then the best thing you can do for you is to ask for help. Your course tutor, personal tutor or student support services can give you advice and support.
Access support: https://students.sheffield.ac.uk/support-hub/course/pressures
How to cite references
There are many acceptable ways of citing references, e.g. in the form of footnotes. All references should include author, work, and the page numbers from which the passage or idea is taken. Here is a standard method of indicating sources:
Format of Footnotes and references:
You must footnote ideas that you have taken from other authors, even if you use your own words to express them. You need not footnote ideas that are common philosophical knowledge (e.g., “Ethics is the study of how one should live”). But you should indicate where ideas not your own come from (e.g., you should footnote Mill when you say, “Mill believed that it is better to be reflective and dissatisfied than unreflective and content”—and, if you got this idea from Mill, you should also footnote when you say, “It is better to be reflective and dissatisfied than unreflective and content.”)
References can be given in full in footnotes, or in short-hand there – e.g. McGinn (1997) – with full details in the bibliography. The page numbers given within the footnote should indicate the page/s from which the passage or idea is taken.
There are a number of different formats that you could follow for your references: just choose one to follow consistently. See, e.g., https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/library/idlt/referencing Here, in more detail, are guidelines for different formats you could use:
For journal articles
Format
Author, “Title”, Journal Journal number (Date of Publication), page number/s.
For instance:
Marie McGinn, “The Writer and Society: An Interpretation of Nausea”, British Journal of Aesthetics 37 (1997), pp. 118-28.
For chapters of edited books, the format is:
Author, “Chapter Title,” in Editor, ed., Title (Place of Publication: Publisher, Date of Publication), page number/s.
For example:
J.W. Allard, “Degrees of Truth in F.H. Bradley,” in W. Mander, ed. Perspectives on the Logic and Metaphysics of F.H. Bradley (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995), p. 138.
For lecture handouts, the format is:
Lecturer, “Title,” Course number, University, Term.
For example:
A.N. Other, “Lecture Handout 16,” PHI254, University of Sheffield, Spring Term 2003.
For citing books
Format
Author, Title [Translator, trans. if applicable] (Place of Publication: Publisher, Date of Publication), page number/s.
For example:
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations Elizabeth Anscombe, trans. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1953), p. 5.
For lecture handouts
Format
Lecturer, “Title,” Course number, University, Term.
For example:
A.N. Other, “Lecture Handout 16,” PHI254, University of Sheffield, Spring Term 2003.
For websites
Format
Author, “Title,” Source of Publication (Date of Publication). Available at: Web Address.
For example:
C. Collins, “Critiques of Humanitarianism and Humanitarian Action,” Report for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (1998).
Available at: http://www.reliefweb.int/library/documents/stock.html#F.