Understanding what academic integrity is, and why it matters, is fundamental to your personal and professional development at university.
Being aware of practices that constitute academic misconduct, such as plagiarism, and learning how to avoid them, ensures you will gain the maximum benefit from your studies.
Sharing our knowledge is fundamental to being at university. We build upon the ideas of others before us and we contribute to knowledge development. It is therefore important to be transparent about our research processes to take responsibility for our ethics and be accountable under scrutiny. This starts and ends with our academic integrity.
What is academic integrity?
Academic Integrity is about the the principles we apply to our study, helping us learn how to use other people's ideas responsibly and appropriately when creating our own work.
| Values | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Honesty | being truthful about where your ideas come from and when they are formed from the ideas of others, and always giving credit to the owner of the work when your ideas come from other sources. |
| Trust | others can have faith in you being open about your work and acknowledging others’ work. Being honest, thoughtful and genuine in all aspects of your academic work engenders trust in your integrity. |
| Fairness | you do not try to gain an unfair advantage in using others’ work, and you take responsibility for your own actions. |
| Responsibility | you take an active role in applying the principle of Academic Integrity to your work and learn and follow institutional rules and codes of conduct relating to good academic practice. |
| Respect | you show respect for the work of others and recognise the consequence of your words and actions on others. |
Learn more about CCCU's principles that ensure fair assessment and quality in academic work in the Student Academic Integrity Policy.
Why does it matter?
As a student, it can sometimes be difficult to see yourself as a vital part of a wider learning community.
Watch this video to discover your place within the academic community of knowledge and how referencing has developed into a key academic practice that maintains academic integrity. Students play an energising role in this process.
Academic misconduct
When the principles of academic integrity are breached, we fall in to academic misconduct. This can be broadly be defined in two broad categories:
- plagiarism
- other types of misconduct, such as cheating in an exam
We all have responsibility in avoiding academic misconduct through the acknowledgement and detailing of previous work so our audience can find used resources. Equally, we can avoid plagiarism by being able to identify the different ways to plagiarise someone's work.
Plagiarism
Referencing is at the heart of academic practice and maintaining academic integrity. If we do not reference our sources correctly, we may accidentally plagiarise. Refer to the Learning Skills Hub on referencing to learn more about how to reference correctly for your course.
“Plagiarism relates to the act of presenting the material, ideas, and arguments of another person as one’s own in work submitted for assessment without acknowledgement. It is done in a way that may deceive the reader as to the source”CCCU, 2021, p. 6
Plagiarism can be either intentional or unintentional. Not everyone sets out to plagiarise, however if we can identify plagiarism then we are more able to avoid it.
The key implications of plagiarism state that we cannot:
- Copy others’ work in whole or part without attribution
- Cite incorrect or non-existent sources
- Modify an original text manually or using software to evade being detected
- Falsify or steal data & present it as our own
- Reuse our own previously submitted work without attribution
Activity
Take a look at the scenarios in the slides below.
Do you think the student has plagiarised?
Contract cheating
Contract cheating is a very serious form of academic misconduct. Under CCCU’s Academic Misconduct Policy it is treated as Level 3, Gross Misconduct, which can result in expulsion from the university.
Contract cheating occurs when someone else writes all, or part, of your assessed work for you and you submit it as your own. Money does not need to change hands, and it includes work written by family and friends, as well as purchased services (such as from essay mills).
Whilst a majority of students will gain their degrees on their own merits, some will be tempted to cheat. Those who are tempted should understand the real, lasting and devastating risks they are taking:
Companies that make their money tempting students to cheat are not ethical or lawful.
Under the Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022 essay mills were made illegal, criminalising the act of providing or arranging contract cheating services for financial gain.
Students who engage a 3rd party open themselves to blackmail, under the threat to pay more or tell the university what they have done. This threat can continue beyond university, with details kept and contact made with students
If it is proved you cheated in your degree, your award can be rescinded (taken back). The choice to cheat can haunt a student for a long time.
Whilst CCCU does not condone cheating, if you are being blackmailed, we will help you.
Contact Student Wellbeing or use Report + Support. You must, however, expect to face the implementation of CCCU’s Academic Misconduct procedures
Avoiding academic misconduct and plagiarism
The best way to avoid academic misconduct and plagiarism is by improving your writing and referencing skills. Expand the boxes below to learn more about improving these skills and links to resources for further guidance and information.
The better you can manage your time, and plan the research and production processes, the less likely you are to feel the need to plagiarise, or make mistakes that lead to accidental plagiarism.
Main problems
- prioritisation
- procrastination
Resources to help
- Understanding and managing your studies
- Planning your assignments
- The Eisenhower matrix: explained in 2 minutes by Eisenhower YouTube channel
- Time management by Kate Williams
Keeping track of your sources and ideas in your notes is the best way to avoid mistakes that lead to plagiarism. Always separate other peoples ideas from your own, and always include references in your notes.
Main problems
- No record of sources
- Mixing others' words with ones own
Resources to help
- Learning Skills Hub on note taking
- Note taking methods: How to Take Notes | Science-Based Strategies to Earn Perfect Grades by YouTube channel Med School Insiders
- Reading & making notes by Jeanne Godfrey
How to include other authors' ideas in your work matters. Paraphrasing should retain the meaning or idea from the original but be re-written entirely in your own words and related to your argument.
Main problems
- Retaining words, structure and meaning from the original source
- Not relating the paraphrased content to your argument
Resources to help
- Learning Skills Hub content on paraphrasing
- Sage "essay writing kit" videos (university login required - for full access, log into LibrarySearch > Finding Databases > A-Z > 'S' > Sage Research Methods > search bar: paraphrasing)
- How to use your reading in your essays by Jeanne Godfrey
It's important to use other people's work as evidence in your own argument. To build a strong argument you need to develop your position first, read widely to understand the context, establish evidence for your position, cite this evidence correctly and explain why this evidence supports your position.
Main problems
- Lack of reading, therefore less understanding of context
- Overly descriptive writing
- Lack of links between ideas, evidence and explanation
Resources to help
- Learning Skills Hub on critical thinking
- The miniature guide to critical thinking: concepts and tools by Dr. Richard Paul and Dr. Linda Elder
Referencing is a core technical academic skill. Always familiarise yourself with your subjects referencing system. If you're unsure, whether or not a reference is needed, ask yourself, "Says who?" If the answer is not "me", then a reference is needed.
Main problems
- Referencing is perceived as an "add on"
- Perceived complexity causes confusion and reluctance
Resources to help
- Learning Skills hub on referencing
- Cite Them Right (requires your university login)
- Referencing & understanding plagiarism by Kate Williams
When to reference
Knowing when to reference can help you to avoid academic misconduct. You need to give attribution to other work in all of the following circumstances:
- Quoting directly from a published source
- Using statistics or other data that is freely available from a publicly accessible website
- Defining a concept or describing a theory
- Using someone else’s work whether it is a photo, an idea or a quote
- Summarizing or paraphrasing others’ ideas
- Using your own work that has been previously submitted
- Using generative AI in assessed work
Activity
Read the extract below and decide: does it need a reference?
If no, why not? If yes, how would you reference it?
The concept of violence in this study is based on Galtung’s Typologies of Violence, in which Galtung distinguishes between direct, structural and cultural violence. In this framework, violence is direct where ‘there is an actor that commits the violence’.
Yes, this extract needs a reference.
The extract is discussing a particular study ('Typologies of Violence') therefore you need to give a reference to this study and the author. This also acts as evidence of where your knowledge is from.
How you reference this study will depend on the referencing style dictated by your course. For more information on referencing styles and how to format your reference accurately, have a look at our content on referencing.
Glossary of terms
The table below highlights some key terms used to discuss academic misconduct and plagiarism.
| term | meaning |
|---|---|
| attribution | A citation and reference identifying the original author of the work. |
| citation | The short in-text reference next to a quote or paraphrase which indicates where the words or idea come from. Different referencing styles will use different formats for citations. |
| reference | The full information that identifies the original author and work you have cited. Different referencing styles will use different formats to reference. |
A citation and reference identifying the original author of the work. Refer to the Learning Skills Hub on referencing to learn more about how to reference correctly for your course.
Assess your learning
Test what you’ve learned on this topic by taking part in our quick quiz.
Key takeaways
- academic integrity is about the principles and values we apply to our work
- to successfully avoid academic misconduct we must be able to identify plagiarism and give accurate attribution to others' work
- contract cheating can result in gross misconduct under CCCU's Academic Misconduct Policy
- by improving your writing and referencing skills you can avoid academic misconduct. Here are some tips:
- keep track of your sources of information when reading
- ensure author and publication details are accurate so readers can find used sources
- ensure both citations and your reference list are accurate and match
- learn more about referencing here
Credit
Written by Emma Scanlan, Rami Younes, Claudia España & David Bedford
Last updated 2026