By Philippa Armitage, Centre for Learning Excellence, University of Bedfordshire

In her article Molly McHarg makes several points that I agree with, particularly that for the majority of students the plagiarism is not deliberate but is due to a lack of understanding of how to reference correctly.

I like her approach to citation as a celebration which focuses on the positive points and reasons why students should reference. I think that most students would not want anyone else to use their work without acknowledgement.

At the University of Bedfordshire there is a policy in place to address all forms of academic offence, not just plagiarism. However, in dealing with plagiarism the policy does differentiate between the seriousness of the plagiarism that has occurred. For students early in their studies where the issue is a first offence, these students will be given guidance to show them how to ensure that they are able to reference correctly and therefore avoid plagiarism. It is important that these issues are picked up and addressed early, because not doing so could mean that a student is not aware of the problem until it is picked up later in their studies, possibly at the time of submitting their project where the issue is likely to be greater and to be seen as a more serious offence. The excuse that 'It is a first offence, all my other work has been referenced correctly' is not really acceptable, as if a student has shown a capability of referencing correctly in previous work, there is no reason why they should then plagiarise, as they have shown an understanding of how to reference.

The two main issues that appear through an apparent lack of understanding, other than not knowing how to reference, are the use of large sections of text copied from a source (with or without reference). This is usually seen in the work of a student for whom English is not his/her first language. The student feels that if s/he try to paraphrase the author they will not be able to say it correctly, and may lose the meaning of the text.

The other issue is lack of understanding of what paraphrasing is. We often see work where the student believes that they are paraphrasing and referencing the work of another author, but in fact they are copying the work (words and ideas) of that author, and then just changing a few of the words within the text (for example frequently is changed for often, and quickly is changed to rapidly). Often a citation is included at the end of the copied text, but as the majority of the text is taken exactly from the source, quotations would be more appropriate therefore the citation is not the correct form of referencing and so it is flagged up by the Turnitin software as similar text. The students understand paraphrasing as writing the text in their own words. They believe that changing one word for another, thus using some different words to the author, means that it is written in their own words. It may help the students to see that paraphrasing will also show their understanding of the text that they are discussing. Good paraphrasing will show that they understand the meaning of the text rather than just show their ability to copy the text with some word changes.

The Academic Discipline Policy at the University of Bedfordshire does try to address the issue of whether an offence is deliberate, or is due to lack of understanding. The aim of the policy is to ensure that cases where there is evidence that the student knowingly plagiarised their work are seen by the Academic Conduct Panel, and that for cases where it appears that the issue is due to lack of understanding the student is given the support and guidance to help them to understand so that they do not make the same mistake again.