Both students and lecturers are becoming increasingly concerned about plagiarism.  Lecturers want to be certain that the work they are assessing is the student's own work and therefore represents the student's real intellectual abilities.  Without this certainty, the degrees that UEA awards to its students are devalued.  Students want to be confident that they understand the principles of academic practice when they are writing assignments, so they can be certain that they are not accidentally committing an academic offence such as plagiarism or collusion.  However, the rules of academic practice can be complex, and can seem very contradictory:

• "we have to give our own opinion, but then we also have to back up everything we say with references to what other scholars have said! How can I say something original?"
• "why do we have to reference things which are common knowledge?"
• "I know I have to write in an 'academic style', but if a book I read says something better than I ever could, why do I have to rephrase it in my own words? It won't be as good!"
• "what if I write something that I thought of myself, but don't realise that some academic somewhere has already written it?  I can't read everything!"
• "how can I be expected to critique something written by an academic?  I'm just a student!"

Some cases of plagiarism are due to deliberate cheating.  Yet many other cases occur because a student has not fully understood what plagiarism is, nor learnt the skills that would help them avoid it.

This website contains resources for students and for staff to help combat plagiarism and promote good academic practice. If you wish to publicise it, its shortcut is www.uea.ac.uk/plagiarism