Recording and saving your work
To maintain the integrity of every degree that is conferred, Dalhousie will only give credit to students who complete their own work. It is every student’s responsibility to maintain their own records of work they have completed. If there is evidence that your work was not completed independently by you or that you had another person complete work for you, it will be very helpful for you to be able to produce:
- Notes
- Drafts
- Electronic files
- Any other evidence that will demonstrate that you completed the work yourself.
If you do not have any such evidence to present, the faculty academic integrity officer or Senate Discipline Committee may consider this as a factor in determining whether you have committed an academic offence.
Writing
Online tools and resources
If you need help with your writing, there are many free online tools and apps:
- Hemingway App: Helps improve the clarity of your writing while also checking grammar and spelling.
- Grammarly: The free version of Grammarly proofreads your documents to improve grammar and spelling. The paid version of the app can also help you create and format citations.
- English Grammar Check: Copy and paste your writing into this simple free tool to check your spelling and grammar.
Dalhousie Writing Centre
Located in the Killam Library on the Studley Campus in Halifax, the Writing Centre offers writing support for students in undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs in all fields of study. They meet with students individually — either in-person or online — to discuss written work, from first-year assignments to final reports and dissertations. The Writing Centre also has a series of online academic integrity modules designed to help you understand plagiarism and how to avoid it.
Paraphrasing
Paraphrasing is restating someone else's ideas in your own words. It allows you to maintain the flow of your writing by reducing the number of direct quotations.
All text taken from another source must either be in quotation marks or paraphrased and acknowledged in your bibliography.
Paraphrasing resources
The following resources offer some great tips for paraphrasing ethically:
The Dalhousie Writing Centre can help you with paraphrasing and citing material correctly.
The Writing Center at Colorado State University provides tips on when to use quotations and when not to. Get tips on How To Paraphrase Effectively.
More examples of acceptable and unacceptable paraphrasing from Purdue University’s Writing Tutorial Service. Learn more about plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It.
It's harder than it sounds, which is why practice makes perfect. Try these Paraphrase: Write it in Your Own Words exercises from Purdue University Online Writing Lab.
Citing
Citations acknowledge the sources used in your work and give information about the source that will allow your reader to find it again. The information provided in the citation normally includes:
- Author name
- Title
- Name of publication
- Date of publication
- Page numbers (if applicable)
Citation styles
There are many different ways to cite materials—MLA, APA, Chicago, engineering style, medical style, and more. The type of citation you use will depend on your area of study. Check with your professor to learn which citation style you should use.
Zotero online citation tool
Zotero is a free citation manager that allows you to manage citations, webpages, images, and full-text articles. Zotero is free for Dalhousie students through Dal Libraries.
Citation practices across cultures
Acknowledging sources is a practice shared across cultures. The University of Auckland created videos of students from diverse cultural backgrounds, explaining why people around the world agree that it's important to reference.
