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A note on plagiarism
Written on 05.12.2022 16:46 by Ben Stock
Dear all,
since we have had a couple of cases already, let me clarify a couple of things about what makes a case of plagiarism.
- Copying from previous years' sample solutions: we may reuse tasks from prior years and some of you may have either taken the course before or know others that have. You may also share the solutions with others through Discord et al. This is plagiarism, irrespective of whether you change a couple of words.
- Using online resources: I'm happy if you use additional material beyond the lecture slides to understand a subject. If you, however, start copying sentences (or parts therefore), this is plagiarism, irrespective of whether you change a couple of words.
- You have taken the lecture last year and just copy in your solutions without understanding? This is self-plagiarism and also forbidden.
Any student who was caught in conducting any such action before today has already received (at least) a warning through 0P on the sheets. Going forward, anyone with a previous warning and another attempt to plagiarize will be excluded from the exam. Similarly, 0P will be handed out to anyone trying this for the first time, with the second time also leading to exclusion from the exam.
I know the first semester is challenging and plagiarizing might seem like a solution to get the exam admission. However, if you have personal reasons (e.g., family emergencies) and are unable to finish a sheet, I will not hold this against you and be generous in enforcing the admission rules. If you try to cheat, though, you loose any good will from us. Or simply put: if you do only half the sheet, you still have chances to get half of the points. If you plagiarize, you'll get 0P on the entire sheet irrespective of whether you did parts by yourself.
Finally, I know the vast majority of students neither conducts such actions nor endorse them. We have these strict rules in place to ensure that everyone who does the exercises themselves is not unfairly treated given the cheats of others. Hence, if you read this far and are not affected, please disregard this message :-)
Thanks