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How to Avoid PlagiarismandThis webpage concentrates on "plagiarism", which is one possible form of academic offence. Please read it carefully, even if it seems a bit long. Prof. Jim Clarke has a more general website on Academic Offences: please read it to learn about other possible offences and how to avoid them. Prof. François Pitt has good advice on avoiding plagiarism Prof. Michelle Craig wrote a similar document specifically for CSC 108H that contains lots of advice useful for any course: How to Avoid Cheating. Contents
What is plagiarism?The Faculty of Arts and Science defines plagiarism as follows: to represent as one's own any idea or expression of an idea or work of another in any academic examination or term test or in connection with any other form of academic work... (Read the complete details in the Faculty's Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters.) In other words, any time that you hand in something (assignment, quiz, test, exam, anything else) that contains someone else's work or ideas, without giving proper credit, you are committing plagiarism. Note that if you correctly acknowledge the part(s) of your submission that is (are) not your own work, you are NOT committing plagiarism. [Back to the Contents.] Why is plagiarism bad?Assignments are given to help you learn, by making you practice course material -- if you commit plagiarism you are hurting yourself by not practicing and learning skills that you will need in your future studies and/or work. Assignments are also given to help us evaluate how well you understand course material -- if you commit plagiarism you are hurting other students in the class who did the work themselves, by being dishonest about your own work to get a mark that does not correspond to you actual understanding of the course material. When the University of Toronto grants you a degree, they are making a statement that you have certain skills and knowledge. The more cheating there is, the less this is true: as companies find out about this (when they hire incompetent students that have a UofT degree), this lowers the value of the degree for everyone. [Back to the Contents.] How can you avoid plagiarism?The safest way to avoid plagiarism is simple: never discuss assignment solutions with other students or with a private tutor; ask questions only of your instructor or TA. In particular, never look at any part of another student's solution, on paper or on the computer screen, even if it is just a rough draft and not a complete solution. Of course, the same goes the other way around: never show another student any part of your solution, on paper or on the computer screen, even if it is just a rough draft. This holds even after the submission deadline (some students could hand in their work late). Also, remember that by "solution", we mean not only code and written answers but also any report, testing, analysis of results, etc. Basically, anything that you must hand in for your assignment is part of the solution and must be done entirely on your own, unless clearly specified as part of the assignment or course. "General discussions" may be acceptable as long as you take no written notes, but it is difficult to know exactly what is "general" and what is "particular", so you could easily end up going too far in your discussions without realizing it. Also, once you start discussing assignment solutions with other students, it is often impossible to stop even if you realize that you are going too far. As a general precaution, if you do have "general discussions" about an assignment with other students, and are careful to take no written notes, we recommend that you wait at least 1-2 hours and do something else (watch TV, listen to music, play games, etc.) before you write up you own solution. This ensures that your written solution will be truly your own and will accurately reflect your understanding (and not simply be a copy of someone else's ideas). [Back to the Contents.] How can you protect yourself?Note that providing unauthorized assistance to another student is considered just as serious as obtaining such assistance. This means that if you forget a disquette, a printout, or any part of your solution in the lab or library (or anywhere else where another student can easily get at it), you are considered responsible if someone copies your work (because we cannot tell the difference between someone who really forgot and someone who left it there on purpose for their friend to "find"). To protect yourself, do not lend any part of your solution to any student until after the assignment has been marked and returned (even waiting after the deadline for submission is not safe: someone could hand it in late). Also, keep all of your old notes and drafts until after the end of the course (so that if something does happen, you have proof of the work that you did yourself). If you think that someone stole part of your solution (e.g., a printout or disquette), inform your instructor immediately. [Back to the Contents.] What is the most common cheating situation?The most common situation when plagiarism happens looks something like this: it's 2 hours before the submission deadline and you're still working on your code (or on one of your written problems) because you're stuck with this one annoying bug that you can't figure out (or there's a step in a proof that you can't figure out how to do); you ask your friend (or maybe just some other student at the lab or on your floor at the residence) to show you what they've done on this part of the assignment, just to help you get unstuck; when your friend hesitates, you promise that you won't copy their solution, that you just need them to explain or show to you how to get over this one bug/step. (Even worse, if your friend still hesitates, you tell them something like: "what kind of a friend are you, you're ruining my marks in this course by not helping me".) If you ever do this to someone, shame on you! (And ask yourself: what kind of a friend are you to do something like this that you know is wrong and to drag your friend into it?) If you get into a situation like this because you underestimated the amount of work required for the assignment, or because of bad time management, be an adult and accept the consequences of your mistake: hand in whatever work you've done yourself, even if it's incomplete. Don't make another mistake on top of it by cheating and worse, drag a friend (or any other student) into it! Sometimes, even when you don't wait until the last minute to work on your assignment, you still get stuck and it takes you a very long time. In those cases, the problem is usually not with the assignment but because there is some important concept in the course material that you have not understood correctly or completely. If you try to get around this by cheating, not only are you doing something wrong but when the time comes to write the midterm test or the final exam, or to do anything that requires this concept in your future courses or job, you'll be just as stuck as you were on that assignment. You will be much better off to concentrate on figuring out what topic you have trouble understanding and getting help from your TA or instructor on that topic. (To be fair, if you get stuck, there is a chance that there really is a problem with the assignment that the instructor did not realize. The sooner this is brought to our attention, the faster we can fix it for everyone.) Moral: If you start working on your assignment early, you'll discover the bugs in your code or the topics you have trouble with in time to get help from your TA or instructor. [Back to the Contents.] What happens to cheaters?The standard penalty for committing plagiarism the first time is a mark of zero (0) on the assignment (because you didn't do the work yourself), a further reduction of your final mark in the course (usually -5% to -10%, because you were dishonest about the work you submitted), and an annotation on your mark transcript saying "cautioned/censured for academic misconduct". It is always worse than handing in your own incomplete work! If we detect similarities between your work and that of other students, we will hold on to your assignment and ask you to meet with us to explain yourself. Our task is to get an explanation of the similarities that we detected.
Moral: If you do something wrong, when you get caught just take responsibility for your mistake and be honest. This will make the entire process much shorter and easier for everyone. Don't panic if you didn't do anything wrong! In order to ensure that the course is fair for everyone, we pursue all suspicious cases. It may happen that there is a perfectly innocent explanation for a case that we thought was suspicious: if this ever happens to you, just be honest and the case will be resolved quickly (you will not be penalized if you committed no offence). [Back to the Contents.] How can you help each other?You should not discuss assignment solutions with other students, but there are many other ways that you can work together:
Remember that if you understand the course material correctly, you should have no trouble doing the assignments. Working together to understand course material always pays off. Also remember that we (the instructors and TA's) are here to help: our job is to make sure that you learn the material, so make use of all of the resources that we put at your disposal. (Of course, you have to do your share of the work too!) [Back to the Contents.] Go back to the menu (if your browser does not support frames).
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