1. Being too general/vague structure

Often students make the mistake of trying to review a subject widely, causing the essay to be too broad. This mistake can be made from lack of planning. Some students even write their essay without any planning whatsoever! This can cause the structure of the essay to be too vague and can avoid answering the question you’ve been assigned. A good essay is precise and sticks to the thesis statement. This can achieved with effective essay planning!

2. Trying too hard to sound academic

Many students will try to include complicated sentences and long words to make their paper sound more academic. The reader should never have to go through a sentence more than twice to find out its meaning. Yes – always use the appropriate terminology as this will get you marks, but before you use a term always be sure you know its meaning and how to use it correctly! Asking someone to read your finished essay will allow them to point out any confusions, inappropriate words or sentences that they feel could be made shorter.

3. Using doubtful sources

Nowadays, many students will rely on the Internet over books to find the information they need. And why not? You can search for whatever you need in a matter of seconds, and there is a immense span of information available. But be careful! Not all this information will be reliable. Be sure to research your topic exhaustively and watch out for any dodgy facts. Determine the facts from opinions.

4. Copying and paste – a big NO!

There is nothing worse than work that has been plagiarised. And since universities, colleges, schools and businesses have taken a big interest in this area, is it very easy to get caught out! Accidental plagiarism is another important thing to try and avoid. Some students may have plagiarism in there paper which could be down to mistakes such as citation confusion, confusion over paraphrasing and not knowing the difference between common knowledge and original work. Make sure that all your sources are fully cited and don’t forget to run your work through Viper plagiarism checker when you’re done, to make sure you’ve not accidentally borrowed too much from a source without referencing it properly.

5. Forgetting to quote/reference

This is a common mistake which closely links in with plagiarism. If you forget quote/reference your work, then it will seem like you are passing it off as your own words/idea! Be sure to read up on how to properly reference your work and again, use Viper plagiarism checker to double check you’ve done this well.

6. Forgetting to proofread

Some students (particularly ones who are in a rush to get their work done) forget that proofreading work is essential! Proofreading your work allows you to get a feel of whether your essay reads well. Allowing others to take a look at your work gives them a chance to spot any areas which cause confusion. And most importantly, proofreading lets you check for any clumsy mistakes in your spelling, punctuation and grammar. You want the reader to gain a good overall impression of your essay, but this won’t happen if you’ve left silly mistakes in.

7. Stay clear of ‘slang wording’

Often in creative writing, using non Standard English is perfectly acceptable depending on what you’re writing. However, free style writing is often unacceptable in academic papers and can damage the overall impression of your essay. Be careful of using abbreviated words too, in many essays this will be unacceptable.

8. Not following task specifications

Read the instructions for the task that you’ve been assigned very carefully. Take into consideration things such as word count, which you’ll have to think about in your planning. Make sure you include everything, and if in doubt – speak to your tutor!

9. Failing to research properly

It will become very clear to the reader if you’ve not researched your topic enough. The essay will be vague and will need more depth. Try to make sure you allow yourself a good amount of time to research your essay properly, and include the findings in your essay, as well as your own thoughts and ideas.

10. No thesis statement

In most academic essays, you will be required to produce a thesis statement. The thesis is a clear outline of what your essay is about. It lets the reader know the main topic, point of the essay and the ideas you’d like to discuss. Make sure you stick you your thesis statement.

Steer clear of these 10 faux pas and you’ll stand a better chance of scoring high marks on your next assignment!

• Check the final facts – use your revision tools/prompts
• Don’t try to learn new topics at the last minute – consolidate what you know
• Get an early night – the difference between being tired and well rested will most likely have an impact on your grade. Being over tired will not help you to do your best

Everyone feels it!

It’s natural to feel nervous before an exam, and the reality is nearly everyone is feeling the same way! But the more prepared you are, the more relaxed you’ll feel. These simple steps will help you to conquer exam nerves;

1. Create a revision plan to help you feel in control of the whole process. A plan will also help you to make sure you use your study time wisely

2. Plan your revision carefully, focusing on the things you struggle with. Gaps in your knowledge can be one of the main causes for exam nerves. Fill the gaps and you’ll be more prepared!

3. Make sure you know where the exam is taking place, at what time and what you need to bring with you. Pack everything you’ll need in the exam on the night before. Having to rush about in the morning can cause you to feel nervous and stressed

4. Look at the exam in context – if you do badly this time round, there are always options open to you. Remember to try your hardest the first time though!

5. Look after yourself – on the day of the exam, its important to eat a good breakfast and drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration. Dehydration makes you tired and will reduce concentration

6. Think positive!

Sitting the exam

• Make sure you have everything you need before the exam! Its probably a good idea to pack your bag the night before to save rushing around in the morning. And check you have everything before you leave!

• Take a watch or clock with you so that you can time your answers

• Follow the instructions at the front of the paper carefully

• Look through the paper first and mark any difficult questions/questions you may want to spend a bit more time on

• Use the information they give you on the paper – sometimes a lot of the information you need to answer a question is already on there

• Look at what marks are available before you answer a question. This usually gives you an idea of how many points you need to make and how well you need to explain an answer (depth of answer)

• Its important to take a minute to plan your longer answers. Writing a few key words of what you’ll include in each section helps you to write a well structured answer

• Try not to rush your answers but at the same time, try not to spend too much time on answers. Some students will rush answers and lose marks, but also spend too much time on answers and will not have enough time to complete the whole paper

• Allow for checking time – give yourself some time once you’ve finished writing to check through your answers and correct mistakes

• Make sure all your writing is written in the right spaces and not outside the writing box. Cross out anything that you do not wish the examiner to see

After the exam

• Don’t worry – you’ve done the best you can and there’s no point panicking now!

• Don’t compare your answers with other students – this can cause you to panic more if there’s something you think you’ve missed something

• If you think anything went wrong, focus on how you could improve it next time. Did your revision plan work?

Internet giant Yahoo! has been sued by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) for violating copyright laws. The publisher of the local daily Straits Times and other daily newspapers, SPH has said it will fight tooth-and-nail the counter-claim filed by the U.S. company’s Southeast Asia operations earlier this month. The local unit of Yahoo! has claimed that SPH has instead violated its copyright (Source: Singapore Government News, December 29, 2011).

Retraction Watch reports that the January 2012 issue of Biosystems Engineering has retracted the article “Advanced techniques for Weed and crop identification for site specific Weed management,” because the paper had been “constructed, in substantial part, by verbatim copying of paragraphs etc. from papers that had already been published in scientific journals” (Source: Retraction Watch, December 28, 2011).

ConWebBlog reports that a Dec. 19 WorldNetDaily (WND) article which purports to depict how “A school named for Barack Obama in Kenya has abandoned hope that the U.S. president will honor a pledge he made as senator to finance it” was plagiarised. WND’s Jerome Corsi attributes the reporting to “a report in Kenya commissioned by WND,” compiled by “a former Kenyan Parliament member with whom WND has worked confidentially since 2008.” Corsi added, “The research was assigned to trusted Kenyan professionals who conducted the field work and reported their findings in writing.” But Corsi’s “researchers” are anonymous, meaning that there is no way to independently verify what they report. Loren Collins at Barackryphal found that large parts of the report are taken directly — and, in many cases, nearly word-for-word — from two previous articles, a 2008 article in the London Evening Standard and a May 2011 AFP article. Collins concludes: “In short, every single quote or finding specifically attributed to Corsi’s unnamed ‘researchers’ was lifted from an earlier publication by another news agency.” (Source: ConWebBlog, December 22, 2011)

The Hindustan Times (December 13, 2011) reports that “Director Selva of Naan Avan Illai fame is in a state of shock! According to him, some of the scenes in the movie Ladies vs Ricky Bahl, directed by Maneesh Sharma, have been copied from his Tamil movies Naan Avan Illai 1&2.” “I was shocked to see that a few scenes in this Hindi movie, which has just hit screens, were actually similar to the ones in my movies,” reads the report.

The Associated Press (December 12, 2011) reports that US-Israeli author Naomi Ragen has been found guilty of plagiarism. A Jerusalem Court has ruled that Ragen, one of Israel’s best-selling novelists, is guilty of plagiarizing material from a fellow author Sarah Shapiro. According to the ruling, Regev copied material from Shapiro’s “Growing with my Children” and used it in her book, “Sotah.”

The Korea Herald (December 9, 2011) reports that South Korean artist Kwon Kyung-yup was recently shocked to find out that works very similar to hers were on sale in Singapore. A foreigner who came across an Indonesian artist’s solo exhibition in August at Art Front Gallery in Singapore sent an e-mail to Kwon to fill her in on the news. In the show, Indonesian artist Dani King Heriyanto‘s 2011 painting “Bandage” featured a girl wearing a hoodie and a bandage over her eye just like Kwon’s 2009 work “Adios.” Heriyanto’s 2011 work “Rise up” also showed a girl with a bandage wrapped around her face just as the girl in Kwon’s 2009 painting “Oblivion”. Heriyanto responded by saying that the work is a ‘parody’.

Julie Bosman reports in the New York Times Blogs (Media Decoder, December 8, 2011) that St. Martin’s Press is defending one of its authors accused of lifting material for a book on Edgar Allan Poe, though critics say there are obvious similarities. St. Martin’s Press has defended Lenore Hart against charges of literary fraud in the writing of her novel, “The Raven’s Bride,” released earlier this year. The book contains passages that are markedly similar to those in “The Very Young Mrs. Poe,” a 1956 novel by Cothburn O’Neal, who died in 2001. Both novels are centered on Virginia Clemm, the first cousin and child bride of Edgar Allan Poe who inspired the poem “Annabel Lee.”

However, don’t despair, as help is at hand!

Why might my grade be lower than I expected?

First and foremost, university grades are marked very differently from school. As a quick guide, UK undergraduate grades are as follows:

70+  = 1^st

60 – 69  = 2.1

50 – 59 = 2.2

45 – 49 = pass

Below 40 = fail

From this, you can easily see how much lower marks are at this level and how small a gap exists between them.

So, if you were accustomed to receiving marks in the 80-90% bracket at school, you are bound to be disappointed to receive, say, 60% now. However, as this would put you in the 2.1 zone, then you shouldn’t worry at all.

How can I improve my grade?

The first and most important thing to do is to look at the comments your tutor has made on your work.

If there is anything that you don’t understand or with which you disagree, try to make an appointment to see your tutor to discuss your concerns.

You should never be afraid to seek help, that’s what tutors are there for, but remember that they are busy people with a lot of students to look after, so be patient and courteous when you approach them – politeness always pays off!

After you have seen your tutor, you should have a clearer idea of how you can build on their comments to improve your work.

I’m still puzzled – what can I do on my own?

I wanted to address this because a major problem with changing up from school to university level is that students don’t understand how much independent study is required.

At school, it is likely that by comparison with university you were ‘spoon-fed’ information regarding completing assignments.

As you will have gathered, this doesn’t happen at university.

You are expected to:

• Find sources
• Apply them appropriately
• Construct work correctly
• Use information given to you effectively.

For all these reasons, it is a very positive sign that you want to know how best to improve your work by yourself!

So, take on board any advice you have been given but build on it by:

• Looking for more and better sources
• Using them more constructively
• Interweaving resources and ideas in your work
• Strengthening your argument.

This may seem a great deal to absorb at once but just take it one step at a time and it won’t seem so overwhelming.

Any other tips to offer?

Yes, too many to go into right now! However, here are a few that will make a big difference in improving your grade straight away:

• Make sure you are answering the question as set
• Sharpen your focus and structure
• Use resources widely and well
• Reference everything you write in the required style
• Analyse evidence critically
• Proof-read carefully
• Ensure that your spelling and grammar are spot-on every time.

All of the above points seem obvious but failure to do any or all of them thoroughly can really make a big difference to your grade.

Final Thoughts

Don’t be at all disheartened by a grade which is below what you had hoped. We have all had times when we think we have completed a really good piece of work only to discover that someone else – i.e. the person marking our work – disagrees. In fact, this often happens, especially when we have really tried.

The thing to do when you receive a lower grade than you expected is to think of it as part of the essential learning curve of academic life.

You have probably heard what Theodore Roosevelt said:

‘The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything’.

So, why shouldn’t this apply to you? In any case, you haven’t made a mistake, you have just taken another step on the long but rewarding journey towards academic success.

If you look at a disappointing grade as a way of learning how to get a better one, you are turning a positive into a negative: in other words, you’re learning!

If you remember, a few weeks ago I gave you a few tips on how to approach starting adult education and by now you will probably have settled in, located the library, found the lecture hall and many other vital locations – not forgetting the student bar (as if you would)!

However, you will now be facing up to the reality of tackling your first assignment and that’s what I’m going to try to help you with now.

Starting Out

When you get your first written assignment, you’ll also be given lots of written advice. Unfortunately, the advice can often be more difficult to understand than the question, especially when it comes to referencing.

The problem is that you probably won’t have had to reference in school so that getting used to the required style can be really stressful. The main thing is to familiarise yourself with the style needed and then use it all the time, even when taking notes, that way you’ll get used to it and eventually it will be natural to you.

Examining the Question

It is extremely important that when you are given your question, you read it through carefully two or three times. Don’t plunge into panic if you think you haven’t a clue how to start and at the same time don’t feel so confident that you begin to write before you’ve thought it through.

The main thing to concentrate on is the ‘key words’ in the question.

Key words are words within a question that tell you exactly what the question is asking you to do and they should therefore guide your whole structure and approach to the work.

Key words are words like:

• analyse
• compare
• contrast
• discuss

Almost all questions contain at least one of these words and they really do influence the way that your tutor is expecting you to approach the question, so think carefully about how you would define each of these and apply that definition to the way you answer the question; this will really help you to focus.

Searching for Sources

It’s the old, old story with sources, everyone wants the same books! The minute your tutor recommends a text, that’s the one that vanishes from the library only to return the day the assignment is due, if not after, i.e. too late!

If you can, get together with a few other people in your group and agree to share texts, if you can afford it buy a second-hand copy of a course text to be ‘owned’ by the group. You’ll usually find that the second year students sell off their books, so you may be able to grab a bargain from which all will benefit.

You’ll be able to access journals etc. via the university database so that won’t be a problem and journals are a great source of the most up to date research, essential in some disciplines, like the social sciences, for example.

Make sure you use the core texts for your topic and draw on the bibliographies of these for your own work – you’ll be surprised how helpful this can be, so do give it a try: experts wrote these books so why not let them help?

Writing Up

As this is your first assignment, if it’s an essay, you can’t do better that stick to the basic ‘5 paragraph approach’, which is as follows:

• Introduction (1 x paragraph)
• Main Body  (3 x paragraphs)
• Conclusion (1 x paragraph)

Your first assignment is unlikely to be very long so this structure should be fine. If you need it to be longer, you can always sub-divide the sections.

Make sure that your introduction has a ‘thesis statement’ (which is a ‘posh’ way of saying what your approach will be) and include a little on method but keep your introduction short. Take care that each paragraph connects – both with the others and with the main theme – and never make a point without supplying textual support as evidence. In your conclusion, sum up your ideas, say what points you think could be elaborated upon with more space, and add a strong final sentence.

There you are, easy isn’t it? See you again soon!

Polishing your work can be an extremely good way of not only gaining extra marks but of learning how and why you might be losing them.

If you have been at college or university for some time you may think that this doesn’t apply to you. However, you could not be more wrong!

In fact, if you have been getting good (but average) marks for a while, you may have fallen into bad habits and therefore this reassessment of your work may be more useful than you think!

How do I start?

For once, the answer to this is easy: you start by looking back at your previous work. If this is your first piece, try looking at the assignments that you completed before college (you didn’t throw them away, did you?) as you will then eliminate any chance of repeating errors you might have made in the past when you begin your work at college or university.

If, however, you do have previous work at university level, then the first thing you must do is look at whether your marks have fallen into the trap of following a formula and getting you the same marks time after time.

Even if these marks are good they can always be better and you should be trying to improve all the time.

For this reason, when you are reassessing your work, don’t only look for mistakes, look for areas where you could have done more. Also, take notice of your tutor’s comments. This seems obvious but let’s be honest, you probably skimmed over the comments and just looked at the grade, didn’t you? We’ve all done it and just felt relief that a piece was ‘done and dusted’

However, you should be aiming higher than just a sense of relief!

Okay, what next?

Impatient, eh? Good! That means you are beginning to want to know how to improve so you’re already doing so.

Accepting that ‘average’ isn’t good enough, should be your mantra: not just now but always.

Now, here are some tips to get you going:

• Examine the introduction to your work and ask yourself whether it is interesting, clear, to the point and related directly to the question: if not, why not?
• Look at the main body of your essay and ask yourself: does each paragraph address a different aspect of the question? Is there a sequential link between the paragraphs? Does my argument carry through each one? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’, then you need to reverse that!
• Examine your use of evidence in the work and ask yourself: am I using evidence correctly to supplement the points? Am I analysing evidence to create further ideas? This last point is very important as it can actually push you up an entire grade.
• Examine your attention to detail in terms of referencing. Ask yourself: am I following the required referencing style precisely throughout? Make sure that you are because you will be penalised if not.
• Have you scanned your work for plagiarism? As I said in a previous blog it is very easy to do this accidentally so don’t take a chance, scan using a plagiarism checker such as Viper every time.
• Consider the overall presentation of your work. Ask yourself: have I thoroughly proof-read my work? Could I improve on my spelling and punctuation? Are my sentences and paragraphs correctly structured? Is my use of grammar correct? Again, these may seem like very obvious points but they are very easily overlooked and neglect of any or all of them will reduce your grade.

Any more tips?

Just one, really, but it’s a major one: always ensure that you deliver your best every time. As I have said before in these blogs, there is no worse attitude than ‘that will do’. Make sure that when you put your name to something, it is the best that it can be, every time. Never allow yourself to fall into the habit of complacency over mistakes or average grades: you know you can do better and in the end it’s really up to you to prove it!

That’s all for now, so until the next time – ‘happy studying’!

This time, I’m going to offer you a little advice on presentation. By that, I don’t mean just spelling and punctuating correctly, although it goes without saying that these should always be perfect. No, what I mean by ‘presentation’ is all the apparently ‘little things’ which will make your work stand out.

Structuring

The first thing that you should think about when you are attempting to improve the presentation of your work is structuring. This might mean using subheadings appropriately, paragraphing accurately, keeping your sentences under control – or a combination of all three.

The main thing to remember is that you are aiming for clarity, you should be thinking constantly of how your work will look to whoever is assessing it.

Remember that tutors mark hundreds of papers and that most pieces are addressing similar topics. Since tutors are ‘only human’ (although sometimes it might appear otherwise) this marking can be a tedious task (believe me, I know) and you’ll get better marks if you help them a little by making your work easy to read: clear structuring helps with this.

Attention to Detail

When you have a heavy workload, which is inevitable in higher education, it is all too easy to think ‘that will do’. However, that is a phrase which you should banish from your linguistic repertoire if you want to get the highest grades.

No matter how short a piece of work is you should make sure that it is your best. Present everything as you would yourself: to the best of your ability.

A good way of checking how you could improve your future work is to look at your past work. Ask yourself:

• Am I expressing myself clearly?
• Am I saying what I want to say?
• Am I using ten words where one would do?
• Am I really answering the question that was asked?

And the killer question:

• What would I think if this were someone else’s work?

That last one is the real clincher because it is like asking you to grade your work – which actually is quite a good idea if you do it honestly!

Learning to Edit

Go through a previous piece of your own work and cross out anything that isn’t absolutely relevant. This is really difficult to do but it sharpens your ability to structure your argument like nothing else so it is really worth a try.

If you were writing professionally, you would be paid by the word (which makes you think twice about writing too much) and editors would ruthlessly cut anything that they considered superfluous, you wouldn’t have any say in the matter, whether you thought they edited out ‘the best bit’ or not!

Believe it or not, they do this because they know that readers don’t have the patience to read long, drawn out pieces. They know we will stop reading and we won’t take notice of their glossy adverts (which is what it’s all about)!

In the academic world, however, efficient editing is a great way of showing that you know what really counts. Remember this editing maxim:

‘If in doubt, leave it out!’

Final Tips

• Always check your spelling, punctuation and grammar
• Always leave time for proofreading – this is absolutely crucial.
• Always paragraph accurately and logically, linking each one to the next.
• Introduce your work so that the reader understands your argument and wants to know more – make that first sentence really bite.
• Reference carefully, citing according to your university’s or college’s instructions – never plagiarise deliberately or accidentally.
• Stick to the point throughout – develop your argument don’t wander off.
• End with a convincing conclusion: summarise and synthesize.

All these tips will help you to present your work more accurately so that when it is graded you will not be wasting marks on foolish errors. Even things like formatting, line spacing and font size matter so don’t leave anything to chance: remember, every word counts.

‘Good luck’ and I’ll be back again soon!

I have referred to this form of plagiarism as ‘tricky’ because it is frequently very difficult to avoid unless you take care with referencing etc. from the beginning.

In addition to this, accidental plagiarism is possibly the easiest way to fall foul of the academic process because most colleges and universities take a very strict line regarding plagiarism of any kind and are likely, at the very least, to reduce your mark, if they suspect you have plagiarised.

What exactly is ‘accidental plagiarism’?

Accidental plagiarism is when, in all innocence, the ideas of another appear in your work as if they are your own. It differs from deliberate plagiarism because you have not set out to cheat in accidental plagiarism, whereas in deliberate plagiarism you have.

How to avoid ‘accidental plagiarism’

The problem is that it can often be difficult to prove that you did not set out to steal someone else’s ideas when you accidentally plagiarised – in fact, it often happens to professional authors, as we commonly read in the press – so the answer is to ensure that you cite every reference you make, however small, to ideas other than your own.

In fact, even when you believe you have had an original thought, you need to check that no-one else has got there first – which is highly likely in academic life as it’s very difficult to say something completely new. In a case like this, you need to put forward your point and then add, for example, ‘as Brown has pointed out’; then give the reference. This way you show that you have had a good idea which is in accord with an academic source.

Careful referencing

When you began your course, you should have been given details of how to reference in the style required by your college or university and your particular discipline. These fall into two main types: footnotes referencing and parenthetical referencing. Both require you to provide a list of sources used at the end of your work.

However, you should never leave your referencing until your work is completed because in the space between writing and referencing mistakes very frequently occur.

What you should do is make a note of a source used when you use it i.e. when you are making notes. If you do this, you will know at the earliest stage exactly where you sourced an idea that you later used in your completed work.

Doing this also helps you when you are writing your work because you don’t have to waste valuable time re-tracing your steps and attempting to sort out which ideas are original and which are not.

How can I be sure I haven’t ‘accidentally plagiarised’?

The best way to ensure that there is no plagiarism in your completed work is to use a scanner like Viper. The results of a scan will tell you in detail where there are areas in your work that occur elsewhere.

If you have accidentally included extracts from your notes without citation that are published then the scan report will highlight them and you can add a citation.

You can be sure that the scanner will identify verbatim notes because the same words and phrases that are in your work will appear in the original source.

However, if you have paraphrased it may be more difficult to detect.

In the latter case, ‘it is better to be safe than sorry’, as they say, so read through your essay again, cross-referencing with the scan result, and if anything seems different from how you would normally write then go back to your notes and check anything about which you are unsure.

As a tutor and lecturer with over thirty years experience in higher education, I can tell you quite positively that if you can’t tell the difference between your own style of writing and that of a published academic, your tutors most definitely will be able to do so!

A final thought …

There is no need to worry about plagiarism if you follow the above advice but it goes without saying that you should never consider deliberate plagiarism – apart from anything else, you’ll get caught and you wouldn’t want that, would you? I’ll be back again soon with more advice, until then ‘good luck’!

Kicking things off, the Guardian (15^th Sept) reports that award-winning Independent columnist Johann Hari has apologised for plagiarising the work of others to improve his interviews and will take unpaid leave of absence from the paper until 2012.  Hari has further apologised for editing the Wikipedia entries of people he had clashed with, using the pseudonym David Rose, “in ways that were juvenile or malicious”, saying he was “mortified to have done this”. So what did he edit?  Hari admits calling “one of them antisemitic and homophobic, and the other a drunk”. Lovely.

Over in the States, the Edmonton Journal (Alberta) (14^th Sept) speculates that the University of Alberta may have sanctioned Dr. Philip Baker, former dean of medicine and dentistry, for plagiarising during a convocation speech in June.  May have? Is this news? The paper goes on to that neither students and the public at large know whether this is the case and won’t know unless Baker “does the right thing” by making that information public.  Hmm, many things ‘may have’ happened…. not sure that makes for a good story.  The Calgary Herald (Alberta) (Sept 13^th) report more plainly that the University has completed its investigation but that the results won’t be made public.  Thanks, chaps.

The International Herald Tribune (September 12) reports that the plagiarism scandals that have rocked the German political world this year have led to soul-searching among academics and prompted calls for stricter controls. At issue is the prestigious title of doctor, which is widely used in Germany, even outside academics circles. Some politicians are calling for stricter guidelines and even for a nationwide system to screen submitted theses.  Hmm, just use Viper …

Lab Soft News (September 9) published a press release from Turnitin, highlighting that it also sells its services to students through Writecheck.  It’s a rather bad attempt at writing from the perspective of a third party when rather clearly, it’s written by them.  Ironically though, Writecheck is not a plagiarism detector at all, as their own site makes quite clear.  Any ‘plagiarism’ detected is just highlighted but the student has no idea where that plagiarism came from to even begin to understand how to correct it.  That’s because Writecheck is simply a reference checker.  With fees per paper and limited rescanning, it’s not the service you might think at first glance).  Speaking of Turnitin, within the last two weeks we’ve been contacted by a university about the licence they demand from their users:

“Turnitin’s new user agreement give them a non-exclusive, royalty free, perpetual, world-wide, irrevocable license to reproduce, transmit, display, disclose, archive or otherwise use any draft case studies we upload.  We are unwilling to commit to such a requirement.”

Yes, I’m not surprised, that’s free reign to do whatever they like with your papers with no extra money for you or indeed the students who wrote them.  I wouldn’t accept that! At ScanMyEssay.com we tailor licences to suit corporate/university users but where users are paying us a fee, we take practically nothing else from them – we just store a copy of the paper for future comparisons so it makes their scans and everyone else’s a lot better.

Techdirt (September 8th) ask whether policing plagiarism at university is a counterproductive way of trying to stop copyright infringement.  The author’s concern is that these extra efforts “degenerate into a witch hunt, focusing on cheating, instead of being about learning”. The same works on the net.  The overall environment — created by suing fans, by trying to lock down technologies, by pursuing new draconian laws and by blaming people for sharing information — is simply toxic.

I agree. But much of it is about perception and presentation.  We like to think of Viper as a tool that helps students learn to reference their work properly, not a tool to help them get away with cheating. Students genuinely do make mistakes, mix up materials, forget to give credit.  Viper highlights that and overuse of source material and a lot more.  It can be viewed as a tool to catch cheating students but we like to think of it as an education tool.

The Hindustan Times Blogs (September 6, 2011) report that plagiarism has become one of the most pervasive problems on the still evolving App Store, and also the Android Market.  An example is cited.  In 2010, Dutch independent designers team Vlambeer created Radical Fishing. The game was available on Kongregate and Newgrounds, and it was a fresh take on the genre of fishing games.  Soon after, the duo started work on a version for the App store, with improved graphics and updated gameplay. One year later, the two were almost ready with their game, but before they could announce it, publisher Gamenauts released Ninja Fishing.  The article notes that in both games, the underlying concept is the same – you cast a line into the water and hook as many fish on it as possible. Then you reel them up and kill them with a gun in one game, and a katana in the other.  The mechanic, the concept and the execution remain the same. But Gamenaut got to the app store first, and are going to make money out of it.  So did Gamenaut plagiarise? This does remind me of the Harry Potter plagiarism cases.  One journalist wrote that she herself had invented a character very similar to Harry Potter earlier in her career and written a book about it.  She didn’t think it was too big a stretch that J K Rowling would have gotten famous with a concept that others could also have thought of.  After all, what is truly original nowadays?

Anyway, back to the news.  Right Vision News (September 5) reports that the Punjab University administration has identified a case of plagiarism involving a couple – Professor Dr Zaid Mahmood of Punjab Universitys Institute of Chemistry and his wife Associate Professor Dr Syeda Rubina Gilani of University of Engineering and Technology’s Chemistry Department.  These two partners in crime produced two research papers containing material from three research papers already published in international journals.  It’s cases like this that make me smack my head in despair.  All over the World we have students being pulled up for plagiarism, struggling through university not knowing how to properly use material or reference correctly, or come up with their own ideas.  Then we have trusted and respected people like this setting the example.  What hope do students have?

Another story in Right Vision News (September 5) reports that the draft Punjab Youth Policy 2011 is a mere “copy-paste” from the National Youth Policy 2009 and the Punjab Information, Culture and Youth Affairs department has only replaced word `Pakistan` with `Punjab` and reduced national policy`s 15 principles to 11 in the draft.  A comment from a British Council representative caught my eye.  He said that there was no need to re-invent the wheel.  That’s an interesting approach to cutting and pasting.

The Press Trust of India (September 4) reports that Kanye West has won a plagiarism lawsuit.  The claim that West’s superhit ‘Stronger’ is a copy of the claimant Vince Peter’s work, was dismissed by the Court.

The Press Trust of India (September 3) also report that iParadigms have brought out a self-plagiarism white paper titled The Ethics of Self-Plagiarism.  iParadigms state: “This white paper offers a clear definition of self-plagiarism and how authors and publishers can avoid this issue and the costly retractions associated it.”  We downloaded and checked out the paper which is a 4 page pdf.  It’s well supported and presented but I could summarise it slightly more succinctly as, don’t reuse your stuff.  Hoping I just saved you a read…

The Globe and Mail (Canada) (September 3) write that the disproportionate number of international students accused of plagiarism or cheating on exams is raising red flags in university administrations and legal aid offices. It also raises questions as to whether schools should be doing more for stressed-out foreign students who are grappling with new educational standards, often while coping with a language barrier.  I’m pleased to see this article because it’s a point I’ve been shouting about for a long time.  Universities in the UK waive entry requirements to foreign students because they bring us more cash.  Then the students struggle.  And the Universities don’t give them any help.  Of course more international students cheat.  It’s not their fault though.  The article cites an example, a student from Taiwan, Hannah Liu, who found she and her friends often felt they lacked the vocabulary and writing skills to be confident paraphrasing research material. “If [students] don’t know how to rewrite the sentence, they probably think, ‘I’ll just copy and paste it,’” she said. Students like Hannah need more support.  Universities don’t give it to them because they’re stretched.  So will the increase in tuition fees change this? Probably not.  There’s no indication that the higher fees means a smaller proportion of students to teachers.  In fact, with slashes across the board in education budgets, it’s highly likely you’ll get less bang for your buck.

On a lighter note, an article in the Times made me chuckle (August 31). The article notes that Vasuki Sunkavalli tells her followers on Twitter she is a “lawyer, model, Miss Universe India, nerd” and until yesterday (30th August) her Twitter account suggested that she had an uncommonly varied range of interests and modes of expression. But a Wall Street Journal staffer, Sadanand Dhume came across her words that seemed familiar on the web since he had written the same sentence himself an hour earlier. Ms Sunkavalli’s twenty-nine tweets bore a strong resemblance to those first posted by the columnist. Her defence was that she was “new to the twitterverse” and had been unaware of its etiquette and the correct use of the “retweet” button.

Back in Pakistan, Right Vision News (August 28^th) reports that the University of Peshawar (UoP) has rejected the allegations of plagiarism levelled by civil society organisations against its Vice Chancellor Dr Azmat Hayat and termed it a campaign of some vested interests.

On the same day it  also reports that the Higher Education Commission (HEC) has directed all universities that the plagiarism test must be conducted on PhD dissertation before its submission to two experts from academically advanced countries in addition to local committees’ members. That doesn’t happen already?!

Other publications have chosen to run commentaries on plagiarism over the past few weeks. The Star (South Africa) (August 25^th) published a feature on ‘fighting the plague of plagiarism’.  The New York Times Blogs (August 23) similarly published an article on ‘the seemingly persistent rise of plagiarism’, citing that four of every five dissertations examined in a study by Dora D. Clarke-Pine, an associate professor of psychology, contained passages with 10 or more words copied without proper attribution.  Then Mail Today (August 22) published a feature on plagiarism being on the rise in scientific research claiming that academic policies that compel academics to publish ” research” for promotions and perks have supposedly encouraged papers on the sly, with scholars borrowing, recycling or stealing from previously published content. It’s a hot topic!

That’s all for now – so many stories to report and many more that I’ve left off, I think you’ll have had all the plagiarism you can take!