Some comments on plagiarism

Academics get very worked up about plagiarism (Which means the unattributed use of someone elses ideas of writing). This is because ideas, and writing about them, are what we make, and we are recognised by their quality. Taking someone elses ideas without acknowledgement is equivalent to theft.

Plagiarism is also irreconcilable with academic assessment. When we ask you to write an essay, we want to see what you have to say about the subject, not what you found on the internet. You must, therefore, be scrupulous in referencing your sources. (You can use some common sense: there are only so many ways of stating absolutely standard material. Indeed, you can say, The following definitions are standard, where appropriate.

The Unversitys statement about plagiarism can be found here. You should be aware that plagiarism is surprisingly easy to detect, and will be dealt with severely. In recent years students have been refereed to the Proctors or have failed their whole course because they presented work as their own that was not theirs. If you are feeling under pressure to produce work and you feel unable to, your first resource should be to talk to your supervisor or the Course Director, not to look on the internet.