This might be a silly question, I'm doing a primary education uni degree and my subject study is computing. For our assignment, we have to create a basic website from scratch using HTML. I'm completely new to coding so I'm fumbling my way through it. I want to follow a video on coding parallax scrolling but would this be considered plagiarism as it's not my original code? My head is telling me no because surely there is only a certain amount of ways you can achieve this? Thanks.
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1For your first website, do not include tricky stuff, make it very simple. I do not know what "parallax scrolling" is, but I suspect that is in the category of "tricky stuff". My first web site had a few text paragraphs, a list, and some links from one place to another on the page. For someone new to coding: make something small, try it out, fix it until it works, then add something else small, and so on. Do not try to do everything in the first draft.– GEdgarJan 13, 2021 at 13:44
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Thank you for the tip! I've been doing really simple websites for this entire module so have grasped the basics, I don't want to overcomplicate anything but I also need to get a good grade on this assignment. I've also got about 50 back-ups on brackets so I'm hoping if anything goes wrong I can just try something else.– user133895Jan 13, 2021 at 13:55
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2 Answers
Are there any reasons not to make transparent that you used the tutorial as a source? Using sources alone is no problem. Not citing is a problem. So cite properly and you should have no problem with plagiarism.
answered Jan 13, 2021 at 13:20
I doubt that this is plagiarism in the formal sense of the term. I'd equate it with using things you find in a text book. This relies on the fact that there are a limited number of ways in which some things can be done and also on the fact that students should be allowed to learn with other resources than those provided.
However, if you are asking whether you could be sanctioned by a professor for this then it isn't so clear and depends on whatever rules are set for your completion of the assignment. A professor can certainly put an embargo on using outside resources for purposes of an assignment. If you use those resources then you can be punished even though you haven't committed plagiarism in the formal sense.
But if your final result gives the impression that the ideas are yours when they are not and not cited, then it becomes formal plagiarism.
Don't equate plagiarism with academic misconduct. The easy way to be sure is to cite what you use (avoiding plagiarism) and also avoiding any claim that you were hiding something from the professor.
Note that professors don't assign things because they need the end product produced by the students. They do it purely so that the student can learn something. Breaking the rules reduces the intended learning. It isn't really about "making" something. It is about "learning" something. Working with limited resources is often a good way to enable that.
