Plagiarism and Referencing in Academic Writing

Academic Level

There are many levels of learning and courses from National Vocational Qualification to Higher Education. The Directgov is an archieved government website but it provides an explanation about each level and education framework.  Within a university programme there are different levels of academic study to achieve.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is an important issue in academic writing which has serious consequences. Merlin Helps Students provide some examples of plagiarism. You need to learn how to avoid this form of copying.

Plagiarism: What is it and how to avoid it

Dawson, M. M.& Overfield, J. A., 2006,  Plagiarism: Do Students Know What It Is?, Bioscience education, Vol 8

Types of plagiarism

Some plagiarism detection sites:

http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/

http://www.dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker/

http://www.articlechecker.com/

http://www.turnitin.com/

Technical Review of free-text plagiarism detection software (document can be downloaded at the bottom of the page.

Referencing

One of the ways of ensuring that you avoid plagiarism in your assignment is to correctly reference all your writing. There are some specific elements that should be referenced within your assignment.

There is an online guide to referencing academic work; another site for Guide to Referencing (various)

The different referencing systems used by various subjects, academic institutions, journals -

Harvard Referencing System (is the most commonly used system)

Modern Humanities Research Association (can be downloaded from this site)

Numeric Referencing System

Vancouver Referencing System

Oxford referencing System

Cambridge University Press

OSCOLA: The Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities

APA: American Psychological Association

MLA: Modern Languages Association

Turabian

Chicago

Open University (Harvard, but might vary in different faculties the Open University version can be found as a handout which you can download)

BMJ referencing styles are identified on this site.

Skills of Essay Writing

 

Essays are a common method of assessment at all levels of education. This allows students to show their skills and knowledge in relation to the topic being written about. Within the readings about study skills you will have gone through the section on essay writing. Here we will focus a little more on this activity and I will provide you with some further resources that can widen your knowledge about essay writing.

First step in essay writing is choosing a topic. This may or may not be provided by the tutor. Generally most modules in a course will have specific topic area or even the title of the essay. However, there is often the element of choice when only the broad topic area is identified. There are many modules that are developed to allow students to develop the particular aspect of the subject they wish to learn; in this case they will be able to choose their own topic for the essay.

The next step is to outline your ideas. This will mean brainstorming the issues relating to the topic and forming a plan that outlines the way you wish to approach your writing. Here you can use the support from making a Mind Map or a Concept Map which have been discussed in previous blogs.

Next you will have to write up the statement that indicates the outline you have developed to show what the essay is going to be about. This should form part of the introduction to your essay. After the introduction, comes the main body of the essay which should be written out in succinct paragraphs. Finally you conclude the essay with a few clear statements summarising your topic.

Once the draft is complete you need to review and edit the work to ensure that you have kept to the guidelines of the essay; that grammar and flow of writing is correct; references are accurate and presentation is as per the guidelines.

Hounsell (1997) in his book The Experience of Learning has a whole chapter about essay writing. While the research is on essays in the subject of History, it does give a clear understanding of the purpose of essays and their construction.

North, S., 2005, Different values, different skills? A comparison of essay writing by students from arts and science backgrounds, Studies in Higher Education, 30 (5): 517 – 533.

Green, W., 2009, Write on or write off: approaches taken by Asian international students to essay writing in an Australian university, Higher Education Research & Development, 26 (3): 329 – 344.

Redman, P., 2006, Good essay writing: a social sciences guide, Sage publication, London.

Essay Writing for ESL/EFL Students a video worth looking at, as it is aimed at students who have English as a second language.

Nine steps to Writing a Successful College essay is another short video.

How to Write an Effective Essay – a YouTube clip essentially showing the steps we have gone through in this blog..