Helpful tips for VET students: Avoiding plagiarism

Phil Benson, our VET Academic Coordinator, spends a lot of time explaining the penalties for plagiarism. He has some advice for our students on how to avoid plagiarism.

Plagiarism is an issue that some students don’t properly understand so here are a few tips to avoid being accused of plagiarism.

1. When using another person’s ideas, reference it. By referencing it we mean stating the internet source or other source that you obtained the material from. 
2. Do not use any material from another student, i.e. not from a present student’s work or from a past student’s work. 
3. Do not allow another student to copy your work for an assessment.
4. At most only 5 – 10% of your assessment should be from other sources. The point of an assessment is to test your knowledge and understanding of a topic, not someone else’s knowledge and understanding. 
5. Ignore claims from others that everyone is doing it and you won’t get caught – the chances are you will.

Please note that if you are caught plagiarising, you will immediately be given zero for that assessment. This not only means that you will have to re-submit an original version, but may also have to pay a re-submission fee.  If you choose not to re-submit, you will fail the subject and this will mean that you do not complete your qualification.


Some helpful information about plagiarism can be found  at Plagiarism.org.
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