There is a wide range of resources to help students understand what plagiarism is, and improve their academic writing skills.
Resources
The Avoiding Plagiarism online tutorial resource developed by the ELSSA Centre has been written specifically for UTS students
Other student writing guides written for UTS students are:
Morley-Warner, T. (2000). Academic Writing is ... A guide to academic writing in a university context. Sydney: Centre for Research and Education in the Arts.
Faculty of Business (1999). Guide to Writing Assignments. Sydney: Faculty of Business
Activities
Conduct a rewriting exercise
To assist students in understanding how these resources can be applied in your subject provide them with examples of a number of versions of the same passage and show them what is acceptable.
Have students look at a plagiarised text and its sources to rewrite it to eliminate plagiarism.
How to Avoid Plagiarism (.doc) is an example you could distribute to your students.
Provide written feedback on drafts of assignments
Feedback helps students to improve and prevents them from making the same mistakes again. UTS students see high quality feedback as consisting of a clear criteria against which to judge the comments, comments that are detailed and related to specific aspects of their work, and comments that are improvement focused.
Teach note-taking
Poor note-taking is the primary reason students give for inadvertent plagiarism. Effective note-making from a written text includes keeping appropriate bibliographic details with page numbers and distinguishing between paraphrased and quoted material.
UNSW has excellent online resources for effective reading and note-taking.
Invite HELPS staff into your class to discuss academic writing
There are many reasons why students may not use sources and/or reference according to the academic conventions of their fields of study. Frequently, unintentional cases of plagiarising are due to students’ limited skills in:
| – writing English – taking and making notes – summarising – paraphrasing – discussing critically & analysing | – citing, referencing and writing bibliographies – reading/interpreting assignment tasks – managing contributions to group work – managing time, workloads and stress – misunderstanding cultural conventions |
Some resources and notes to address these causes of plagiarism are included in this ”resource package”. Further assistance (workshops, individual assistance, credit subject, etc...) for staff and/or students is available from Higher education language & presentation support (HELPS) - helps@uts.edu.au
Provide collaboration guidelines
Subject outlines describe to the students what is in your subject, including the nature and extent of collaboration required. The students receive the subject outline in the first week of the semester and the details should only change in exceptional circumstances.
Provide proofreading guides
As well as spelling, grammar and sentence structure students need to ensure that their references are accurate and formatted in the appropriate style. See the UTS Library's assignment survival kit.
Describe how to cite electronic sources
There is a tendency to view materials on the internet as being in the public domain and therefore not requiring referencing. Check the UTS Library's referencing guides.
Reference
Wilhoit, S. (1994). Helping students avoid plagiarism. College Teaching, 42(4), 161-165.