GUIDELINES FOR STUDENTS

As the Department has moved towards 100% coursework as a means of examination, we have to make sure that the assessment for various courses is as fair as possible.

Could we then ask you as students to carry out the following responsibilities?

1. It is your task to know what the assessment for the particular course you are doing is, and to know the dates that you have to hand in work and to plan your work so that you can meet those dates.

2. All work should be presented as professionally as possible. That includes a Bibliography for each essay (unless it is a class test or a take-home exam): this means that everything that you refer to from other books must be fully cited, including page references. It includes numbering your pages and leaving a generous margin for comments. Make sure that you have an effective title for your work: one that leads the reader in to the topic, not just something so general that it cannot help you with an argument.

3. You must submit work this semester by the date your lecturer tells you. Please submit assignments to the office, who will put a date on the work you send in, and please submit your work in duplicate. Also: remember to put your name and identifier on the essay! Please do not send your work as an attachment, and make sure you hand it in to the office, not to the lecturer.

4. Please note: we take a very severe view in the department of work which has been copied from other sources. If you take work from other writers, and all academics do, you must credit the other writers in footnotes and in your bibliography. Otherwise, you are committing plagiarism, which is not only a severe offence in the University’s terms, but also the cardinal academic sin. Everyone refers to other scholars: that is fair, and we expect you to do so in the essays that you write. It would be very odd if you did not refer to other writers. But you must be honest about it, and indicate what you have used of other people’s work.

Plagiarism
Letter from Dean
MLA Style Sheet

5. There have been occasions in the past when a student has handed in the same essay (or roughly the same) to two different tutors. This form of double submission will obviously incur severe penalties. With all courses, there is always the possibility of an oral test as well, if we feel that the work you have done is not wholly yours, or wholly honestly done.

We want you to do well and to enjoy the courses, and to produce work that you can be proud of, and that will advance you in your scholarly career. Please make sure that you do not cut corners, and that you sort out any difficulties beforehand with your lecturer, who will be pleased to help you, and to give clear guidance on essay titles and topics.

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