plagiarism and cheating

If you really, really, need help, please only use 

• https://dictionary.cambridge.org/  (English-English dictionary and Thesaurus-to look for synonyms)

• https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/ (English-English)

• collocation dictionaries 

and ONLY to look up the odd word/expression (as an exception). 

Using a proper dictionary or a collocation dictionary will help you improve your writing skills- you can learn from that. ✅  

Resources: 

• How to use dictionaries to improve your writing tasks (B2-C2)

• Tools to check whether language sounds natural or not, and to improve the level of your productions

• Online collocation dictionaries

❌ PLEASE, DO NOT USE ANY OTHER TOOL. THAT IS A COMPLETE WASTE OF YOUR TIME (AND MINE). 

• What is the point of submitting something you haven't done when the only objective of these assignments is to improve your writing skills?

• What is the use of my giving feedback on a piece of writing which is not 100% yours?  

• You are not getting any extra points towards the exam, or making me "happier" for submitting outstanding work. On the contrary, I will know immediately that you have submitted work that is not 100% your own, and I will be disappointed.

• If you don't have time to submit any work, then, don't do it, please.  

• What is the point? Why do you do it? Do you think I am not going to notice? Trust me, I know you, I know how you speak, and I've been an English teacher for a VEERY LONG TIME. I know what a non-native speaker of English, however advanced/proficient they may be, writes like. 

• And more importantly, WHY?? 

• Are you learning anything? 

• Do you think that, if you fool me,  I will think highly of you? NOOOO! Suppose you managed to fool me: then, in the exam, I would be even more disappointed when I read the "real you". 

• Trust me, using any of these tools will not deceive me, you will only be deceiving YOURSELF!!!! (You won't be learning anything at all!)

Is that any help to you? Are you learning anything from that? (Both are faulty, believe me!) Besides, in all likelihood, your text is going to sound artificial. 

By the way, are you going to use Google Translate in your exam? Are you going to check Word Reference in your exam? 

Some of you claim that you only look up some of your ideas or background information online to be "inspired", and then you keep some expressions in your writing tasks because you found them interesting. 

How is that helpful to you? Are you going to Google content or ideas in your exam? 

In my experience, the sentences students tend to copy from websites are expressions which are NOT FREQUENTLY USED. So, you cannot even learn from copying them, as you won't be able to use them in other contexts. 

If your work is mistakenly understood not to be 100% your own, please let me know, and we can talk about it. If I was wrong, I will gladly give feedback on your original work.