POLICY ON PLAGIARISM
SCHOOL OF ENGLISH, DRAMA AND FILM,
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
POLICY ON PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism is academic theft and is taken very seriously. It is a breach of UCD college discipline as outlined in Section 6.2 of the Student Code and the penalties for it are severe. Penalty marks will be deducted from essay grades for plagiarism and penalties may range as far as exclusion from the programme. If you are ever unsure about what plagiarism is, please ask a member of the teaching staff to clarify it before you submit your work.
General Definition of Plagiarism:
The action or practice of taking someone else’s work, idea, etc., and passing it off as one’s own; literary theft. (Oxford English Dictionary)
Details:
- Plagiarism refers to the unacknowledged use of someone else’s ideas. By not acknowledging your source(s), you pass it off as your own.
- Sources of material include all printed and electronic publications or unpublished materials, including theses and essays, written by others—this, of course, includes essays written by a fellow student(s).
- There are no doubts about plagiarism: if you take an idea from someone or somewhere else, you must acknowledge it by giving an accurate and full account of your source(s); otherwise you have plagiarised your source(s).
- When you submit an essay or thesis to the School of English, Drama, and Film, you are required to sign a coversheet which declares the work to be your own (coversheets are available from the School’s office).
- For all modules which use Safe Assign, electronic submission is mandatory: an exactly replicated electronic copy must be uploaded by the advertised assessment submission deadline. For instructions on uploading assessments, see Blackboard.
- The School may at any time conduct an oral examination to verify the sources of written work submitted.
- A School committee will interview students whose work contains evidence of plagiarism.
AVOIDING PLAGIARISM
Listing sources is a simple exercise and you should consult the School’s “Style Sheet” for directions.
Taking notes
Accurate attribution of ideas starts with good note-taking procedures. As you read, make detailed notes which distinguish clearly between:
- quotations from the text you are reading;
- ideas that you wish to refer to, but do not intend to quote word-for-word; and
- your own reactions and insights to what you are reading.
The best way to do this is:
- place a quotation within inverted commas and provide a page number (or other appropriate source reference) in brackets beside it;
- indicate to yourself that an idea is taken from the text by writing “X argues” or “X suggests that” and so on, and give the reference(s) for the source of the idea; and
- place your own ideas in square brackets or put an asterisk by them in your notes.
Producing written work
- Provide clear references to all ideas cited (following the style sheet).
- Be aware of what is common knowledge for your subject and remember that this may vary; a module on the specific influences on Shakespearean drama may be investigating the origins of themes that another, more general, module may take as common knowledge.
- Distinguish between your ideas and those of others; see examples below for guidance.
- If you are in any doubt as to whether you should cite a source or not, cite it. It is better to have cited unnecessarily than be penalised for plagiarism.
Doing examinations
As you will not have your books available during examinations, you are not expected to quote directly. However, you should be aware of the principal writers in relation to specific course areas and you should attribute ideas where possible. Even if you can’t remember who said what, be careful not to pass ideas off as your own. “It has been noted that Man of Aran is an example of ‘hard primitivism’” is not quite as good as “Luke Gibbons points out that Man of Aran exhibits characteristics of Panofsky’s ‘hard primitivism’” but is much better than “Man of Aran is an example of hard primitivism.”
SPECIFIC EXAMPLES OF PLAGIARISM
In preparing an essay on Irish Drama, you might note the following quotation and publication information:
Even before the political violence erupted in Northern Ireland in 1969, Friel’s plays centered on an attachment to the local, to the small community, to the marginalized and border regions as opposed to the metropolitan center; it is one of the import ways in which he has come to be recognized as a postcolonial writer. His plays dramatise the poetics of the tribe, and they do so most often through an obsessive focus on its microcosm, the family. (Anthony Roche, The Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006, 2)
Plagiarism is evident if you argue as follows:
EXAMPLE 1:
My point is that Friel’s plays centered on an attachment to the local.
NO SOURCE LISTED—THIS IS PLAGIARISED BECAUSE YOU HAVE QUOTED FROM PROFESSOR ROCHE’S ESSAY, BUT HAVE NOT ACKNOWLEDGED IT.
EXAMPLE 2:
It is fair to say that even before the political violence erupted in Northern Ireland, Friel’s plays centred on an attachment to the local and to the marginalized and border regions more than the cities. In many ways Friel is interested in tribes and families.
THIS IS PLAGIARISED EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE DELETED SOME OF THE QUOTATION AND ADDED SOME OF YOUR OWN WORDS. YOU HAVE NOT ACKNOWLEDGED YOUR USE OF PROFESSOR ROCHE’S WORK.
EXAMPLE 3:
Anthony Roche argues: “It is fair to say that even before the political violence erupted in Northern Ireland in 1969, Friel’s plays centered on an attachment to the local” (2). In this context, it is evident that Friel was a writer committed to issues of family and tribe, to the rural more than the urban, to borders more than centres.
IN THIS EXAMPLE, SOME OF THE QUOTATION IS CITED. HOWEVER, IN THE SECOND SENTENCE, IDEAS ARE CLEARLY DRAWN FROM PROFESSOR ROCHE’S ESSAY AND, WITHOUT LISTING THE SOURCE, THIS IS PLAGIARISED.
EXAMPLE 4:
Anthony Roche argues: “It is fair to say that even before the political violence erupted in Northern Ireland in 1969, Friel’s plays centered on an attachment to the local” (2). This is an important point in reading Friel. His plays consistently address small-town Ireland. Roche extends this reading by emphasising the importance of the “tribe” and the “family” (2). Representations of the family will be the focus of my study.
THIS IS NOT PLAGIARISED BECAUSE YOU HAVE GIVEN CLEAR EVIDENCE OF YOUR USE OF PROFESSOR ROCHE’S ESSAY (THE NUMBER 2, LISTED TWICE, INDICATES THE RELEVANT PAGE FROM HIS BOOK). YOUR WORK IS COMPLETED IN THIS CASE WHEN YOU ADD THE PUBLICATION DETAILS IN YOUR “WORKS CITED” SECTION. THE EXAMPLE HERE REQUIRES:
Roche, Anthony. “Introduction.” The Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006: 1-17.
EXAMPLE 5:
As my essay examines the role of women in Brian Friel’s work, Anthony Roche’s analysis of the plays is an important one for my argument. In general terms, he emphasises that the local and the family are obsessively featured in Friel’s work (2). I seek to investigate that obsessive interest, but with a focus on the women in the families.
THIS IS NOT PLAGIARISED BECAUSE YOU HAVE GIVEN CLEAR EVIDENCE OF YOUR USE OF PROFESSOR ROCHE’S ESSAY EVEN THOUGH YOU HAVE NOT USED QUOTATION MARKS (THE NUMBER 2 INDICATES THE RELEVANT PAGE FROM HIS BOOK). YOUR WORK IS COMPLETED IN THIS CASE WHEN YOU ADD THE PUBLICATION DETAILS IN YOUR “WORKS CITED” SECTION. THE EXAMPLE HERE REQUIRES:
Roche, Anthony. “Introduction.” The Cambridge Companion to Brian Friel, Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006: 1-17.
SEE ALSO: “PLAGIARISM” ON THE UCD LIBRARY WEBSITE: http://www.ucd.ie/library/students/information_skills/plagiari.html
“PLAGIARISM.” MLA ONLINE. 28 MARCH 2009: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/plagiarism.html.
POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES:
- ESSAYS IN WHICH ALL OR SOME MATERIAL HAS BEEN PLAGIARISED WILL BE SENT BY THE MODULE COORDINATOR TO A COMMITTEE WHICH OVERSEES SUCH CASES
- THE COMMITTEE WILL REQUEST A MEETING WITH THE STUDENT
- THE COMMITTEE WILL CONFIRM THE JUDGEMENT IF PLAGIARISM IS EVIDENT. ESSAYS IN WHICH ALL OR SOME MATERIAL HAS BEEN PLAGIARISED MAY BE GIVEN A FAIL GRADE
- THE COMMITTEE WILL ALSO DECIDE IF FURTHER ACTION IS NECESSARY