Cheating and plagiarism
Disciplinary measures may be taken against students who use unauthorized aids or otherwise attempt to mislead during examinations or when a study performance is otherwise assessed (SFS 1993:100, Chapter 10, Section 1).
In other words, students must not use cheat sheets, unauthorized aids and unauthorized cooperation in an exam or for an assignment. Study performance can be a laboratory report, exam, project assignment, assignment, essay or degree project. The teacher will inform you about what is allowed and what is not. Using images, statistics or text in your own name that someone else has done, and making it appear to be your own, is plagiarism and is considered cheating.
What happens when you cheat
Your teachers know their subject and the sources available. Therefore, plagiarism and cheating are usually detected when they read the submitted texts. The university uses a plagiarism checking tool that protects your papers from being plagiarized and can also detect plagiarism. Teachers are obliged to report any suspicion of cheating and plagiarism to the university rector for further investigation.
When you cheat as a student, you skip your own learning, the very reason for academic studies, but you also face disciplinary action. Warning or suspension are the most common disciplinary measures. The Disciplinary Board investigates the complaint and decides on such measures. Being suspended from studies counts as an interruption of studies and the right to study funding ceases during the suspension.
How to avoid cheating and plagiarism
Cheating can be due to ignorance of how to write academic texts and the requirements for a scientific approach. Advice for students:
- Always follow the teacher's instructions and ask if you are unsure of what applies.
- Be critical in your interpretation of sources to avoid being misled yourself.
- Learn the formal rules that apply to academic texts.
- If you take texts verbatim or copy images from others, you must cite and acknowledge the source. When rewriting or summarizing a source text, always use your own words or expressions and cite the source. Thus, always write references for anything that you have not thought of yourself.
- If you refer to a text that you have previously written, mark it with a reference. If you want to reuse parts of, for example, a homework, essay or degree project that you have written yourself and submitted to the university, you must clearly state that it is a matter of reuse. If you reuse wording verbatim from your own material, you must mark the quote with quotation marks and reference. A good rule of thumb is to treat your own texts in the same way as those of others.
- Indicate the sources in the reference list.
- Read the Guidelines for independent work/thesis with a scientific approach.
- Learn Word, spelling software and reference management, for example through the program Refworks.
- Referencing Opens in new window.
The University Library's pages on reference management. - Copyright and plagiarism
University Library pages on copyright, how to avoid plagiarism and how to use images in your work.
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