Avoiding Plagiarism

The University of Adelaide expects students to understand their responsibility for academic integrity and to develop the knowledge and skills to avoid plagiarism.

University policy on academic integrity and plagiarism

The University of Adelaide's academic integrity policy includes the issues associated with plagiarism, the responsibilities of the faculty/school/department, the responsibilities of staff and students, as well as the procedures and penalties for plagiarism.

All staff, students and affiliates of the University of Adelaide who are involved in research practice should be familiar with and must comply with:

Student guides and resources

The guides and resources on this webpage can help you understand how to avoid plagiarism in your academic writing. We also encourage you to book an appointment with a learning advisor if you need further support. Please note that learning advisors help you build your skills and understanding. They will not provide evidence for, or act as advocates in, academic integrity investigations.

Turnitin

Turnitin is a software used for checking and marking student assignments. For most of your courses, you will hand in your assignments via MyUni, and a Turnitin originality report will be generated for your assignments.  This report will tell you how similar your writing is to other texts that can be found online and in other student assignments.

You can check your draft assignments for text matching and text originality (prior to submitting the assignment for marking) by submitting draft assignments to the Turnitin self-assessment tool within MyUni.

To find out more about how to check your own assignments, as well as to learn about the importance of using this software and properly citing/integrating sources into your writing more broadly, please take a look at the excellent and newly updated Turnitin Guide for Students.

You may also want to have a look at the university's Academic Integrity resources for further information, including useful guides to help you 'upskill' and further develop your knowledge.

If you have any questions about academic integrity, plagiarism, or the results you receive generated though the Turnitin originality report using the Turnitin self-assessment tool, please email your questions to us. For questions about using or accessing the software more broadly, please contact MyUni Support.