Page 92 - EDU_Programme_Handbook_2015

APPENDICES

Appendix 6: Referencing your work in
Education

Plagiarism

The detailed and accurate referencing of work is important in academic contexts and serves multiple purposes
within professional communities and communications. One of the purposes of referencing is to avoid
appearing to present others’ work as your own – i.e. plagiarism.

Given that most students on this programme are College or NHS employees, it is expected that you will be
familiar with plagiarism and how to avoid it. Nevertheless, it has to be stated that plagiarism will not be
accepted and severe action may be taken against students who have plagiarised the work of others. To avoid
inadvertent plagiarism, it is important that you understand what constitutes a problem or offence. You have
access to an online information literacy guide: www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/library/learning-support/
plagiarism-awareness. The College regulations on scientific misconduct and plagiarism are provided in this
handbook. The detection of plagiarism by members of College or NHS staff can have severe consequences
for their professional careers, over and above the regulatory consequences of plagiarism by typical taught
postgraduates.

All assignments, dissertations, and portfolios submitted for summative assessment will be via Blackboard
Learn and will be sent for checking by plagiarism detection services.

Harvard-style Referencing

There are many styles that can be used for referencing, this information is based on the Imperial Library guide
and introduces the Harvard referencing style:
www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/library/learning-support/reference-management/harvard-style

The Harvard style of referencing, which uses an ‘author-date’ approach, is required for all work submitted for
the PG Cert, PG Dip and Master’s in University Learning and Teaching.

When you begin your research for any piece of work, it is important that you record the details of all the
information you find. You will need these details to provide accurate references, and to enable you to locate
the information again at a later date, should it be necessary to do so. It can also be useful to keep a record of
your literature search strategy and process, where did you search? What key words and search terms did you
use? What key authors did you follow-up? This information can help you discussing your literature searching
with your supervisor or other students or members of the academic team. The literature search strategy can
also be required as part of the assessment on some assignments.

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