Buying essays online and plagiarism

Buying essays online 

This week there has been discussion about the use of online essay-writing services which offer to write essays for payment "plagiarism free". By this they mean that the essays are written to order and are less likely to be recognised as plagiarism when checked by educational software. It does not mean that what they do is ethical or that students using them are not cheating. Universities and Colleges have strict policies on this and if you are caught you can be disciplined or even expelled from an institution.

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What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is passing off something someone else has created as your own work whether intentionally or not or if you have their permission or not. ARU's Academic Honesty Policy identifies "the situation where someone has deliberately and knowingly allowed or paid another person to do their work" as fraud. It also states that "handing in something for assessment which has been produced by another student or person" is plagiarism.

How do I avoid plagiarism?

For the majority of students who do write their own assignments, there is still the need to avoid plagiarism. To do this, you need to reference everything you use whether published or not, whether written, drawn, composed, created etc. It could be a television programme, it could be an image, it could be a paragraph in a book or a section from a website. It is always best to put ideas in your own words but whether you quote directly, paraphrase or summarise, you must write a reference. It is best to do this as you use each source (so you aren't trying to remember everything at the end) and then collect them together in to one author alphabetical sequence at the end of your assignment.

The LRC at PRC have created a plagiarism and referencing learning package together with a plagiarism quiz and a referencing quiz with exercises to help you create references. These are on our 24/7 Moodle page. ARU also has one of the best guides to Harvard referencing on their website and this is what UCP students should be using. Qualified librarians can also come in to a class and deliver a session with practical activities if this is preferred.