Assignments, AI and academic integrity
Answer your questions about how to use AI, how to reference and what academic integrity really means.
What is academic integrity?
Academic integrity is an intimidating phrase but essentially it means being honest, acknowledging your sources and not letting others use your work. Part of this is being clear about citations, rigorous about referencing, and ensuring that your work is a true expression of your understanding. Avoid plagiarism, essay writing services or fellow students editing your text. Likewise, giving your work to others, including paid services and online plagiarism checkers, means your work may end up being reused without permission.
We have a comprehensive academic integrity guide covering everything to look out for. It is worth giving this a scan before you start a project to understand the best practice and save it to refer to if a specific issue arises.
Using artificial intelligence (AI)
There are a lot of questions about the use of AI in universities and education right now. We’ve put together answers for some of the most common queries about AI and your assignments on our AI and Academic Skills webpage.
AI can help you study and get to grips with your subjects, but if used inappropriately, it could also affect your grades and academic integrity. This is your prompt to discover what you can do, and what to avoid, when using AI tools.
Referencing resources
Referencing is a huge part of academic life, and we know getting it right is one of the biggest worries for new students. Luckily, we have a range of resources so you can make sure you know your quotes from your footnotes.
The first thing you’ll need to do is find out your school’s referencing style. Simply find your school and follow the corresponding link to get a breakdown of which referencing style you need to use and how to use it.
We also have a referencing tutorial that helps you troubleshoot any technical questions about referencing. On top of that, our referencing homepage has a step-by-step referencing explainer with links to dozens of our resources you might need. But if you still have questions…
Get some peer-to-peer support
The writing mentors at the Writing Space are referencing masters. The Writing Space can be found on the ground floor of Laidlaw, 1–4pm, Monday to Friday, throughout term-time. So why not head over and see if they can help you?
They should be able to get you on the right track but if you’re struggling and need more in-depth help, you can also book a one-to-one academic skills support session with our learning advisors.
If personal issues are affecting your academic performance, you must contact your school so they can help. The University has guidance for mitigating circumstances, and LUU has a mitigating circumstances walk-through explaining what happens in those situations.
EndNote: Referencing made easy
EndNote is a handy tool to easily format and keep track of the references you use. This will save you a lot of time, as long as you use it consistently. And because it’s integrated into Library Search, you can easily export the books and journals you reference from your reading lists into your assignments.
We send out regular new workshop newsletters. We also have plenty of helpful videos on our Instagram. Take a look!
