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Plagiarism and Academic integrity

Like any Higher Education Institution, the LSE takes plagiarism, as an instance of academic misconduct, very seriously. Students are made aware of the gravity of plagiarism offences from the moment they register (see Conditions of Registration, paragraph 15). However, we also recognise our institutional responsibility to prevent students from committing plagiarism, rather than merely trying to detect instances of academic misconduct. Students caught plagiarising do not necessarily do so knowingly. One might draw a distinction between poor scholarship (lack of understanding on part of students) and academic misconduct (deliberate cheating). For this reason, the LSE100 course (now compulsory for all incoming first years) explicitly emphasises study skills that include an awareness of the importance of proper citing and referencing.

Electronic text matching software:

However, if you are faced with a detected plagiarism case, the LSE subscribes to TurnitinUk, which is not a "plagiarism detection service", but an online tool that finds textual matches between documents. For more information contact Sonja Grussendorf by emailing clt-support@lse.ac.uk.

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is passing off somebody else's work as your own.
This includes verbatim quoting without quotation marks or referencing, as well as implicit plagiarism acts, such as summarising, or rewriting and paraphrasing. It covers written, visual and oral work.

Depending on the extent of the offence, in the UK and in many other countries perpetrators can be prosecuted.

Where can I learn more?

LSE100 Skills Site - a Moodle course site created to enhance student information skills.

Library Companion for Students - a dedicated Moodle course area, includes very helpful resources on citing and referencing, i.e. on avoiding plagiarism!

More information

If you are interested in using or need help in using turnitin, or would like more information on how to make your students aware of plagiarism, please contact us via clt-support@lse.ac.uk

See also: digital & information literacy

prison - image of elephant behind bars by JoshuaDavisPhotography on flickr

Don't go there: "prison" by JoshuaDavisPhotography on flickr


TurnitinUK - "JISC endorsed solution for institutions in the UK"