PLAGIARISM DECLARATION

Hi Folks

At a recent BCB departmental meeting (May 2006) it was agreed that all
students will need to sign an undertaking that their assignments have
not been plagiarised and are correctly referenced. At an earlier meeting
in 2006 the department agreed to using the CSE/CBE style for all
referencing in student assignments. It was also recommended that all
electronic courses also carry such a declaration. To this end you will
note that a plagiarism declaration has been added to the right hand side
of the Weblog ensuring compliance and understanding of the issues of
plagiarism and correct citation, quotation and referencing.

It is important that you understand these issues and to this end Gwen
and Nick have put a lot of effort in helping your identify and not to
commit plagiarism while undertaking the Biodiversity course. I trust
that this message is now fairly comprehensively understood, nevertheless
you may submit certain assignments to Nick who has agreed to check them
as per the revised schedule put up by Gwen in an earlier posting on the
Biodiversity Blog (See
http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2006/05/correction-editing-times.html )

How to avoid plagiarism?
Make your own notes when revising material and keep a record of all the
references you have consulted.Organise your notes into a mind map of the
assignment.Use your notes and mind map to prepared the final
assignment.Get a classmate to look through your assignment before
submitting, for both plagiarism and proper referencing.For submitting on
the Weblog and when preparing Power Point presentations, I would
recommend using a number in brackets after the text. The number should
be hyperlinked to the article if it is available electronically
available. The numbers must be organized in ascending order and placed
within square brackets [1].Do a few checks of phrases of five words or
more using a Google SearchFinally quickly read through your more
important references to check that you subconsciously have not slipped
in a near verbatim phrase.

Some important references to Plagiarism on the NISL Weblogs that you
have participated in

PLAGIARISM: OFFICIAL RULING AND DEFINITION - SENATE UWC

http://bcb703.blogspot.com/2006/04/plagiarism-official-ruling-and.html

DEFINING PLAGIARISM

http://bcb703.blogspot.com/2006/03/defining-plagiarism.html

STANDARDISED PENALTIES FOR THE SCIENCE FACULTY

http://bcb703.blogspot.com/2006/03/standardised-penalties-for-science.html

THE HUNT IS ON FOR PLAGIARISM

http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2006/05/hunt-is-on-for-plagiarism.html

BIODIVERSITY TAUGHT THROUGH THE WEBLOG

http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2006/04/biodiversity-taught-through-weblog.html

EXTENSIONS, TESTS AND PLAGIARISM

http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2006/05/extensions-tests-and-plagiarism.html

Plagiarism and Referencing: Hopefully the last word

http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2006/05/plagiarism-and-referencing-hopefully.html

Cheers

Rich, Gwen and Nick

Dr Richard Knight
Co-ordinator: National Information Society Learnerships - Ecological
Informatics
Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535

Phone 27 + 21 + 959 3940
Fax 27 + 21 + 959 1237

Email Rknight@uwc.ac.za

Web http://nisl.uwc.ac.za