Citing sources in human rights research

	The words	The problem	Why it matters
1	“Lamp Trust believes every child is made in the image of God … more than an hour to school.”	Plagiarism: two sentences copied word for word from Source 2, with only “we” changed to “they”. No quotation marks, no citation.	It presents the charity’s writing as Rhys’s own. In an NEA, that is malpractice, and WJEC can penalise or disqualify a candidate for it.
2	“Jesus said ‘train up a child in the way he should go’”	Wrongly attributed and copied from the chatbot. The verse is Proverbs 22:6, from the Old Testament, not the words of Jesus.	A basic factual error about a sacred text, which Rhys would have caught if he had checked Source 2.
3	“Every year 5 million girls are forced out of school.”	An unchecked statistic from the chatbot, which gave no source.	Nobody can check it, and it may be invented. A wrong number weakens the whole argument.
4	“The first word revealed to Muhammad was Read. Muslims think learning is a kind of worship …”	Patchwriting: Source 3’s sentences in the same order, with a few words swapped (“looking for” for “seeking”, “duty” for “obligation”). No citation.	Changing some words does not make it Rhys’s work. The ideas and the structure still belong to Iqra Futures.
5	“[Lamp Trust classroom photo] from Google Images”	Using a photo marked “All rights reserved” without permission, and crediting a search engine instead of the owner.	Lamp Trust owns the photo and asked people to contact them first. Google only found it; Google did not make it.
6	“References: Google. AI chatbot.”	Not references: no author, date, title, web address or date accessed.	A reader, teacher or moderator cannot find or check a single source.

Also: “Article 26 says …” has no citation, and “Humanists also agree with education” is vague with no source, even though Source 4 would support a much better point.

Hughes, M. (2024) Village school classroom [Photograph]. Available at: https://www.openlens.example/photos/4471 (Accessed: 21 September 2026).

Iqra Futures (2026) Girls’ education scholarships. Available at: https://www.iqrafutures.example/scholarships (Accessed: 21 September 2026).

Lamp Trust (2025) Why we build classrooms. Available at: https://www.lamptrust.example/why-classrooms (Accessed: 21 September 2026).

Pritchard, S. (2026) ‘Homework club volunteer: “Every child deserves the chance to think for themselves”’, Western Valleys Gazette, 14 September. Available at: https://www.westernvalleysgazette.example/news/homework-club (Accessed: 21 September 2026).

United Nations (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Available at: https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights (Accessed: 21 September 2026).

Source 5: the chatbot gave no sources, so there is nothing behind the “5 million” figure to check, and it got the Bible verse wrong, which shows it cannot be trusted on facts. Rhys should go to the original: read Proverbs 22:6 himself, and either find the statistic from a reliable organisation and reference that, or leave it out. If he used a chatbot to help him think, he should say so, following his school’s rules.

Idea	Decision	Reason
(a) Quote two sentences from Lamp Trust, marked and cited, then comment	Yes	A short, credited quotation used to comment on the source is honest academic practice, and UK copyright law allows fair dealing for criticism, review or quotation with a sufficient acknowledgement.
(b) Lamp Trust photo on the school’s public website	Only with permission	“All rights reserved”: Lamp Trust owns it and asks to be contacted first. The photo also shows children, who may have agreed to appear on the charity’s own site, not on a school site that anyone in the world can see. He should ask Lamp Trust in writing, or use Source 6.
(c) Megan Hughes’s photo	Yes, if he credits her	The CC BY 4.0 licence allows public use, as long as he gives the title, creator, source and licence under the photo.
(d) “Her Pen, Her Future” as his own campaign title	No	That is appropriating another organisation’s work: the slogan is Iqra Futures’ campaign identity. Using it without credit presents their idea as his and could make people think his campaign is linked to them.
(e) His own slogan, inspired by theirs	Yes	That is taking inspiration: he learns the technique (short, memorable, two matching halves) and creates new words of his own.

Charities help to turn the right to education from words on paper into real classrooms. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that education “shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages” (United Nations, 1948), yet many families still cannot pay the costs of school. Iqra Futures covers school fees, uniforms and books for 1,200 girls, so that their family’s money is no longer the barrier (Iqra Futures, 2026). This matches Article 26 closely, and its petition for free secondary school for every girl goes further than the article’s minimum. For Muslims this work is a religious duty, because the Prophet taught that seeking knowledge is an obligation for every Muslim (Sunan Ibn Majah 224). A humanist reaches a similar conclusion for a different reason: Dr Alun Price argues that people need education to use reason, evidence and empathy when deciding how to live (Pritchard, 2026). In my judgement, charities are essential but cannot be enough on their own. 1,200 scholarships help 1,200 girls, while Article 26 promises education to everyone, so governments must still be held to that promise.

Photo credit: Village school classroom by Megan Hughes, OpenLens photo library, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

Which part of Article 26? Iqra Futures’ petition matches Article 26(1), that education shall be free, and pushes it further, to secondary school. Dr Price’s homework club matches Article 26(2), “the full development of the human personality”, because it is about helping children think for themselves.