Academic Misconduct: How to Avoid It

As the winter chill sets in and the days get shorter, you’ve made it through your first term of attending lectures, making friends, and going on nights out. But wait, what’s that around the corner? Lurking in the shadows and dimming your holiday cheer?

Ah yes, those frightening deadlines – and we know that no matter how merry the season, one of the most chilling things for a student is an upcoming assignment.

In a moment of panic and stress, you might think – what’s the harm in getting a little help? Before you copy off someone else’s work, work together with a friend or enlist the help of Chat GPT, consider what might be even scarier than an assignment? Getting caught for academic misconduct.

Academic misconduct is anything which is against the rules which govern the assessment of work. This includes things like plagiarism, commissioning, and collusion. 

It may seem like a quick and easy solution to copy off someone else’s work or even ask someone else to do the work for you but there could be long term repercussions. One of the reasons why you are at university is to learn and develop important skills like researching, writing and critical thinking. By resorting to these shortcut solutions, you’ll be missing out on these vital learning opportunities.

If you are struggling in the lead up to a submission deadline, don’t be tempted to ‘cheat’. You should contact your personal tutor or module leader to get help with any academic enquiries. We know how stressful student life can be and if there are personal difficulties that are making things tougher, consider applying for an extension or extenuating circumstances rather than resorting to ‘cheating’.

An academic misconduct investigation can be a lengthy process, which can cause issues for progression or graduation – all in all situations you would rather avoid.

Though sometimes, despite your best efforts, you may be called up for an academic misconduct allegation because of minor errors like lack of referencing or poor academic practice. But fear not, there is plenty of support to help you avoid these pitfalls that could lead to academic misconduct!

Firstly, it is your responsibility to understand what is and is not considered academic misconduct. A summary of the types of assessment offence this might include are:

• Plagiarism - the presentation of another person’s work as your own, without proper attribution or reference. This can be intentional or unintentional.
• Commissioning - the use of a third party to do your work (including unauthorised use of generative artificial intelligence tools)
• Presenting content generated by artificial intelligence tools as your own unless specifically authorised in writing as part of the assessment brief and appropriately acknowledged.
• Duplication - unacknowledged or unauthorised replication of your own work.
• Falsification - unacknowledged invention or alteration of data, quotes or references.
• Collusion – working with another student to produce work when this is not expressly permitted (i.e. outside of group assessments)

Lack of awareness is not considered a defence to academic misconduct so even if you didn’t intend to commit the offence, your work could still be flagged for academic misconduct. The University has a reputation for academic integrity and they have to take allegations of academic misconduct seriously so take a moment to familiarise yourself with the Regulations on Academic Misconduct.

Here are some tips you could incorporate into your assessments to avoid being flagged for academic misconduct allegations.

Plagiarism:

• Have a system in place to identify your notes from your references so you don’t mix it up later.
• You may want to have a separate document with all your direct quotations or reference notes or highlight it in a different colour so that it’s easily identifiable. Keeping track of every source can also help you put your bibliography together.
• Write in your own voice and make a clear reference when you reproduce someone else’s work. You should provide citations not only when you take direct quotes but when you use other people’s arguments.
• Rearranging or changing some words from someone else’s work is surefire to get called up for plagiarism so make sure to write in your own voice as much as possible.  
• Familiarize yourself with the referencing style for your course.

Duplication:

So, in the same way you should avoid taking someone’s work and pass it off as your own, you should also avoid taking your previous work and re-using it for another assessment.

This can involve:

• Resubmitting an entire paper
• Copying or paraphrasing sections from previous work
• Using data from a previous study

It can be legitimate to reuse pieces of your previous work, but you should discuss this with your tutors first and you will need to properly cite yourself.

If you need to resit an assessment, avoid choosing the same question or try to come up with new ideas so that you’re not unintentionally using the same material as your original work.

Collusion:

Sometimes you may have to prepare a joint assignment/presentation as group work. This should be clearly outlined to you in the assignment brief. If you aren’t sure which aspects are part of the group work, you should check with your tutor to be certain.

We understand that studying together can be useful when trying to understand your learning material but working too closely together can put you at risk of collusion.

• If you share notes or discuss ideas together, you may accidentally write similar phrases or words in your assignment, making it appear as though you produced the work with someone else.
• Unless otherwise stated, you should do all of your work on your own! And this means both physically and digitally so don’t be tempted to discuss questions online during an exam or assessment as this is considered collusion.

Commissioning:

We know students get ‘offers of support’ from essay mills, which are essay writing services that offer to write your work for you. These may seem like a quick fix when you feel that you are stuck on an assessment and feel like time is running out but don’t be tempted by it!

You should never get someone else to write an assessment for you, whether paid or unpaid. All of your work should be your OWN.

• If you are struggling with understanding the assessment, contact your personal tutor or your module leader and speak to them to discuss things as soon as possible.
• To avoid falling into the trap of these essay mills or letting someone else write the work for you, plan ahead and give yourself plenty of time to prepare for each assignment.   

Commissioning also includes the unauthorised use of AI tools to write parts or all of your essay. Generative AI (GenAI) tools can be really useful and can support learning in a variety of ways, but to use them ethically and effectively you need to be aware of their limits.

Presenting Content Generated by AI:

Your assessment instructions should contain information about whether the use of AI tools is authorised. If you can use AI tools, the extent of how you can use these is likely to be School and/or course specific so always check with your School or your module leaders for more clarification. Don’t be afraid to ask if you’re ever unsure!

Unless generative AI use is specified in the assignment instructions, the use of AI tools can lead to academic misconduct. If use of an AI tool is permitted and/or required in the description of the assignment, you should clearly state in your submission which AI tool has been used and how it has been used. Take a moment to familiarise yourself with how to cite AI use and always check with your School about specific referencing styles.

If you use an AI tool for notetaking or summarising your lectures, make sure that they do not infringe on intellectual property rights or violate privacy regulations. Make sure to re-read the notes so that the content is accurate and covered all of the key points.

See more ways in which AI can be used responsibly  and have a look through the Library’s guide on Gen AI use.

Falsification:

How to avoid falsification is fairly easy: don’t do it.

If you are making up data or results, or listing sources that do not exist, or even altering some of the data or results, then this is falsification. Not only can this have serious consequences in terms of academic misconduct, but you are also letting yourself and the academic community around you down. You’re here to learn and contribute new ideas and research to the academic community, and good academic work is underpinned by honesty.

Other tips:

• If you are struggling and feel that you won’t be able to submit the assessment, then speak to your personal tutor and consider applying for Extenuating Circumstances. If you’re unsure if you should apply for EC’s, you can always come speak to an advisor about your situation and we can talk you through the process and all your options.
• Keep a track of all your reference and research materials, as well as any earlier drafts of your work even after you have submitted the assignment so that in the unfortunate event you are flagged for academic misconduct you can use those documents as evidence.  

• Complete the ‘Avoiding Plagiarism’ course on Moodle. This will teach you good referencing practices and give you information on the Turnitin( the plagiarism detection service used by the university to generate an originality report on your submitted work).
• If you need help developing your academic skills, book an appointment with the Centre for the Development of Academic Skills (CeDAS). They aim to enable all taught students at Royal Holloway to achieve their full academic potential. They offer 1:1 tutorials, drop-ins and workshops. These activities, delivered both online and in-person, address key aspects of academic writing and communication, maths, stats, numeracy, and studying independently.

If you find yourself with an allegation of academic misconduct you can seek advice from the Advice Centre. Simply email advice@su.rhul.ac.uk and an Advisor will be in touch to explain the process and help prepare you for responding to the allegation. If an Advisor is available, they can also accompany you to the panel meeting for support. You can read more about what to expect at an academic misconduct panel on our Academic Rights Hub.