Ed Sheeran and Plagiarism

Ed Sheeran and Plagiarism

Earlier this month it was reported in the news that Ed Sheeran was being sued for over 20 million dollars for copying an existing song (Amazing) and using parts of it in his song Photograph. 

Plagiarism

Using someone's work without gaining their permission to do so or giving credit to them is a serious and expensive business and the principle behind it applies to your academic work too. As you move forward in your studies, failure to credit your sources of information can result in disciplinary action. Most Universities (including UCP) require students to submit their work through a software program which checks whether it is their own work or copied from somewhere else (from the internet, for example).

When you are learning and writing assignments, you are of course expected to read and quote other people's work. This is part of the learning process. However if you do not give credit by citing and referencing the works you've read and used in your work, you will be committing plagiarism. Including references at the end of your work, even at College, can also earn you extra marks.

Learn about plagiarism and referencing

To help you understand and apply this correctly, Library+ has created an online learning activity which can be accessed from our Library 24/7 page on Moodle. The activity is made up of 4 parts:

1) Plagiarism

2) Referencing

3) Plagiarism quiz

4) Referencing quiz

The quizzes are intended to test your knowledge having completed the corresponding learning activities first

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Lecturers can also ask Library+ for some code which will put a button on their course page to link to the resource. They can then see their students' test scores, if they need or want to.

For more information, please ask in Library+.

So why not have a go - either to learn from scratch or to remind yourself how to reference. The resource is new so if you have any comments on how it can be improved, then please also let Library+ know.