Plagiarism

Plagiarism involves taking someone else’s words, thoughts or ideas and trying to pass them off as your own. This includes downloading and submitting work taken from the Internet. Other common forms of plagiarism would be using quotations without attributing their source or passing off the ideas of others as if they are your own.  Plagiarism does not have to be word for word theft of material but a "close imitation of another’s work”.

Plagiarism is a form of cheating which is taken very seriously and ignorance cannot be used as an excuse. If plagiarised work is submitted to the examination board there are very serious consequences, both for the individual student and examination centre – either St George’s Academy, Carre’s Grammar School or Kesteven and Sleaford High School. If a teacher finds that a student’s work has been plagiarised, the school will impose very serious sanctions upon the student.


The examination board regulations state that:

  • The work which you submit for assessment must be your own
  • You must not copy from someone else or allow another candidate to copy from you
  • Referencing - if you use the same wording as in a published source, you must place quotation marks around the passage and state where it came from. This is called referencing
  • You must make sure that you give detailed references for everything in your work that is not in your own words.

If your work is submitted and it is discovered that you have broken the regulations one of the following penalties will be applied (decision will be made by the examination board):

  • The piece of work will be awarded zero marks
  • You will be disqualified from that unit for that examination series
  • You will be disqualified from the whole subject for that examination series
  • You will be disqualified from all subjects and barred from entering again for a period of time.

Do not think you will not be caught; it is easy for markers (and your teachers) to spot plagiarism. Markers can spot changes in style and use of language. Markers are highly experienced and familiar with work on the topic they mark – they will no doubt have read the very same sources you have used! Internet search engines and computer software can match phrases or pieces of text with original sources.