4.2 Getting help with your work
You’re learning all the time, in lots of different ways and from lots of different people. When studying, preparing and submitting your work, it’s important to understand what sort of help you can and can’t accept from other people.
Let’s join Jai, Emma and Luke as they explore what kind of help is and isn’t okay to accept from other people in your work.
All My Own Work: Working honestly
Read transcriptActivity
Read each scenario listed below and think about if the kind of help is "okay" or "not okay." Then click on the box to reveal the answer and check your understanding.
Okay.
It’s great to have the support of your family and friends in your studies – as long as they’re not doing the work for you. You can talk about your work with your friends and family and you could even ask them for feedback, but you must make sure that all of your work is your own.
Not okay.
External tutors may want the best for you but they must not do your work for you. They might discuss your work with you, but it’s up to you to come up with your own ideas and present them in your own words.
Okay.
Just like teachers and tutors, the staff at coaching colleges are there to help you, to support you in your learning and to unpack things you’re struggling with. Listen to their advice, but don’t allow them to do your work for you or you may be found to be acting inappropriately and you could put your whole HSC at risk.
Okay.
If you use word processing software, such as Microsoft Word, to write your work, you’ll notice that it has an in-built spelling and grammar-checking functionality. There are also external websites, software and plug-ins that can check your spelling and grammar and even offer suggestions to improve your phrasing, word choice and tone. As long as the ideas are yours and you’re not letting this software write content for you, these are perfectly acceptable and very valuable tools for making sure your assessments are polished and error-free.
Note: grammar-checking software, including AI, is not perfect and may make incorrect suggestions. While these tools can be valuable, you must assess the situation, consider the context and intended meaning of your writing and not accept suggestions or corrections without careful consideration.
Not okay.
Ghostwriters are people you pay to write an assignment for you. It could be someone you know or someone you’ve connected with through a third party. Getting someone else, such as a ghostwriter to do your work for you is a highly unethical and dishonest form of plagiarism and would be seen as a serious offence.
Not okay.
There are many websites where you can go to buy essays. Don't do it. Your teachers and external markers are aware of these sites, and there are many tools that they can use to check your essays for plagiarism.
Okay.
If you require specialised assistance for a project, this is regarded as ‘outside assistance’. You must discuss this with your supervising teacher before undertaking any work and acknowledge this assistance in your project journal, folio, diary or log.
AI-generated content
As you’ve already learnt, using the work, words and ideas of others and pretending they’re yours is plagiarism. It doesn’t matter if they came from another person or a machine, the point is that they didn’t come from you. They’re not all your own work.
Getting a computer to write your work for you and pretending you wrote it yourself is no different from getting another person to write for you and pretending you wrote it yourself.