Plagiarism awareness for undergraduates
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What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is when you copy someone else's work, words or ideas and use these in your coursework, thesis, report, etc., and do not acknowledge that you have done this. This can be either intentional or unintentional.
Penalties for plagiarism at Imperial College London
The Imperial College London Examination and Assessments: Academic Integrity document (pdf) outlines the potential penalties that a student may face after being found guilty of plagiarism.
According to the document:
'these penalties include a mark of zero for the assessment in which the examination offence occurred or a mark of zero for all the assessments in that year or exclusion from all future examinations of the College (i.e. expulsion from the College)'.
Why shouldn’t you plagiarise?
There is a vast collection of material available to you for the purpose of study and research. Your lecturers, and their lecturers, used this material as the basis for their studying and for their own work. Your subject knowledge would not exist without access to this collection of materials.
Therefore, it is integral to your study and research that this collection is acknowledged and recognised by all researchers in a particular subject field. Anyone who produces a piece of work can reasonably expect recognition for it. The concept of academic integrity is built upon the act of recognising and acknowledging the ideas that have already been produced and of any subsequent work.
It is therefore critically important, as you read, consult, and discuss materials that other researchers, scientists, engineers and medical practitioners have produced, to acknowledge their work and ideas.
Plagiarism Awareness course
The Library has developed a Plagiarism Awareness course for undergraduates. It is a self-guided one-hour course with an assessment. The course is offered via Blackboard Learn through your academic department in the Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Faculty of Engineering. If you are in a different faculty, your librarians will provide Plagiarism awareness instruction within your course using various platforms.