Lake Macquarie High School

Quality Education in a Caring Environment

Plagiarism Policy

Rationale:

Lake Macquarie High School has an obligation to ensure that students conform to best practice and hand in work for assessments that is not plagiarised.

What is Plagiarism?

Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work, or borrowing someone else's  original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the  offence:   

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarise" means -

• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own; 
• use (another's production) without crediting the source; 
• to commit literary theft; 
• present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source. 

In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.

Aim:

All of the following activities are unacceptable: 

• Copying someone else's work in part or in whole, and presenting it as their own; 
• Using material directly from books, journals, CDs or the internet without reference to the  source;
• Building on the ideas of another person without reference to the source; 
• Buying, stealing or borrowing another person's work and presenting it as their own;
• Submitting work to which another person such as a parent, tutor or subject expert has  substantially contributed; 
• Using words, ideas, designs or the workmanship of others in practical and performance tasks without appropriate acknowledgement; 
• Paying someone to write or prepare material.   

Please Note: 
Most cases of plagiarism can be avoided by citing sources. Simply acknowledging that certain material has been borrowed, and providing your audience with the information necessary to find  the source, is usually enough to prevent plagiarism.  

Implementation:

Consequences:   

• In cases of plagiarism in class work, the student will be given the opportunity to resubmit  the work. 
• In cases of plagiarism in formal assessment tasks, all plagiarised material will be ignored in determining the final mark. That is, if the entire task is plagiarised, the mark awarded will be zero. 
• Parents might be informed that a student has submitted plagiarised work.

Guidelines for Students:   
"Avoiding plagiarism starts during the research process with keeping accurate records of  information and ideas gleaned from sources.  Any time that a researcher copies another's  wording verbatim, even if only a phrase, the researcher should place quotation marks around  that wording in his or her notes, so that the quoted material is clearly distinguishable from the  researcher's wording.  It is important to keep a complete record of bibliographical information while doing research, so that one is able to complete in-text citations, notes, and bibliography as he or she drafts the paper."
http://www.bridgewater.edu/WritingCenter/plagiarism_def.htm     

What this means is:   
When you decide that you want to make some notes from a source, the first thing you do is to  write down the detail of the source.      

An example of how to record this information is shown below:
  
Books:
Author's last name, Author's first name, Title of Book, Publisher, Publication date. Example: Starr, Ringo, Beetles in the Woods, Bantam Books, 1988.

Articles:
Author's last name, Author's first name, "Title of Article", Name of  Periodical, Publication date, pages used.   
Example: Watson, Peter, "Making Ugly Dolls", Mad Magazine August 1988, pp. 2-5.
  
Web Pages:
Author/Organization, Web Address, Date.
Example: Australian Academy of Science www.science.org.au/nova/072/072key.htm  June 2002   

It is also a good idea to list those people who helped you in any way.  
For example: "I was helped in my research by Joe Montana, Craig Luckenbach, Albert Einstein, and by Pat Lewis who helped me build my display."   

Once you have accurately written the details of your source, take notes underneath. 

• Put ideas into your own words using regular vocabulary.
• If you are copying "word for word" place quotation marks around your notes. (Check with your teacher if Footnotes are required - they are expected in Years 11 and 12.)