The University of Hong Kong

Department of Physics

Physics Laboratory

Plagiarism

Before you start your experimentation and writing any laboratory report, plagiarism is the most serious academic offence. This laboratory has the policy of ZERO TOLERANCE such that:

1. As in any academic writing, no copying of any kind is allowed. If the result/arguments/view points of other people are used or quoted, this must be clearly indicated and the source properly acknowledged by way of a reference. The offence of plagiarism is said to have been committed if other people's work is copied and used in your own work without acknowledgement as though it was your own work.

2. This also applies to any material posted on the internet. So, please do not copy material from any web site as though it was your own work. If you need to quote material from the internet or any other source, you must acknowledge the source by way of a note in the text of your report or a reference listing at the end of your writing.

3. Your laboratory reports will be subject to stringent plagiarism tests at the end of the semester. If plagiarism (however small in extent) was detected, your report would be automatically disqualified and you would be given zero mark -- you would be notified of course. This misconduct would be reported to higher authorities.

4. If one report of yours was found to have committed plagiarism, all your other laboratory reports would be scrutinised closely for possible plagiarism offence.

5. The penalty of disqualification will apply to the student who allows his/her work to be copied. This would automatically involve penalties cited in 2 and 3 above.