Academic Misconduct Guide - University of Wolverhampton

Plagiarism8How can Idevelop myacademicwriting skills?When you’re using other people’s work orideas it is important to engage with theirwork critically. You can quote, paraphrase,summarise or critically review – and then youmust provide appropriate references. Let’slook at how you can use sources both toavoid plagiarism and gain higher marks.QuotingWhen quoting directly from a source youmust use quotation marks and give theauthor’s name, the date of publication andthe page number in the main body of text.You must also provide a full reference in yourreference section. When you quote you usethe exact text that was originally written.For example:Knight argued: “It is the student’sresponsibility to ensure he or she is fullyaware of how to reference; however,universities should ensure that informationis clearly publicised in, for example, awardand module guides and that study skillssupport is readily available to all students”(Knight, 2005, p4).You can, if you wish, introduce quotationslonger than four lines with a colon, then twoempty lines, then the quotation itself indentedfive spaces from the left margin, typed withsingle spacing.You then need to include in brackets theauthor’s name, the date of publication andthe page number. You don’t have to usequotation marks for this type of quotation.Knight emphasises it is more important toprevent than punish plagiarism:It is important to apply appropriatepenalties to those who attempt to passof the work of others as their own, but itis essential to deal with the more widespreadcourses of plagiarism: sloppyreferencing and the general lack ofawareness among students about thesubtleties of substantial paraphrasing.Only then will we begin to reduce theever-increasing number of studentscaught in the plagiarism trap(Knight, 2005, p5).