Glossary

Academic conduct refers to the way you behave in your academic work and assessments. Good academic conduct means following the principles of academic integrity and university regulations. Poor academic conduct includes behaviours such as plagiarism, collusion, or falsifying work.

Academic integrity means being honest, fair, and responsible in your studies. It involves producing and submitting work that is your own, giving proper credit to others’ ideas, and following your institution’s rules about referencing and assessment.

A citation is a formal acknowledgement of where information, ideas, or words from another source have been used in your work. Citing sources correctly allows readers to trace your research and demonstrates integrity in your academic writing.

Collusion occurs when two or more students work together in a way that results in submitted work being too similar or identical when it should have been completed independently. This is different from permitted collaboration, which involves shared discussion but individually produced work.

Formative learning or assessment is designed to help you improve your understanding and skills before you submit your final work for marking. When you use Turnitin formatively, you use it as a learning tool — to review your writing, receive feedback, and make improvements in advance.

Patch writing is when a student copies short sections of text from a source and makes only minor changes — such as rearranging words or replacing a few terms — without fully paraphrasing or giving proper credit. It is often unintentional but still counts as poor academic practice. This is also known as Turnitin's Find and Replace above.

Plagiarism is when you present someone else’s words, ideas, or work as your own without proper acknowledgment. This can happen intentionally or accidentally, for example, by copying text directly or failing to include correct citations and references.

A reference gives full details of the source you have cited in your work — such as the author’s name, publication date, title, and where it can be found. Referencing is the process of creating these full details in the correct format (for example, using the Cite Them Right or APA style) to show where your information comes from and to avoid plagiarism.

Scaffolding refers to the structured support and guidance provided to help students build their knowledge and skills step by step. In academic writing, scaffolding might include examples, templates, or feedback that enable you to develop greater independence over time.

The similarity index is the percentage score shown on a Turnitin report. It represents how much of a submission matches other sources in Turnitin’s database. This percentage does not automatically mean plagiarism — it should be interpreted in context, as some matches (for example, references or common phrases) are expected.