Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism

Academic dishonesty or academic misconduct is any type of cheating that occurs in relation to a formal academic exercise. It can include

• Plagiarism: The adoption or reproduction of original creations of another author (person, collective, organization, community, or other type of author, including anonymous authors) without due acknowledgment. Consciously copying or closely replicating anyone’s work counts as plagiarism.
• Fabrication: The falsification of data, information, or citations in any formal academic exercise.
• Deception: Providing false information to an instructor concerning a formal academic exercise, such as giving a false excuse for missing a deadline or falsely claiming to have submitted work.
• Cheating: Any attempt to obtain assistance in a formal academic exercise (like an examination) without due acknowledgment.
• Bribery: Exchanging assignment answers or test answers for money.
• Sabotage: Acting to prevent others from completing their work. This includes cutting pages out of library books or willfully disrupting the experiments of others.
• Professorial misconduct: Professorial acts that are academically fraudulent equate to academic fraud and/or grade fraud.
• Impersonation: assuming a student’s identity with the intent to provide an advantage for the student.

All of these offenses have serious consequences. If you are found guilty of any of them, you may receive failing grades for a class, lose eligibility for financial assistance like scholarships, or even face suspension. Why does the university take these so seriously? The whole point of a college education is to learn new concepts and skills. Academic misconduct disrupts and devalues the learning process for everyone involved.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the unauthorized or uncredited use of the writings or ideas of another in your writing. While it might not be as tangible as auto theft or burglary, plagiarism is still a form of theft.

Examples of plagiarism include:

• Turning in someone else’s paper as your own
• Using the exact words of a source without quotation marks and/or a citation
• Using similar words as a source while keeping the same sentence structure and meaning – this is known as patchwriting.
• Taking an image, chart, or statistic from a source without telling where it originated
• Copying and pasting material from the internet without quotation marks and/or a citation
• Including another person’s idea without crediting the author

In the academic world, plagiarism is a serious matter because ideas in the forms of research, creative work, and original thought are highly valued. Chances are, your school has strict rules about what happens when someone is caught plagiarizing. The penalty for plagiarism is severe, ranging from a failing grade for the plagiarized work to a failing grade for the class or expulsion from the institution.

Intentional, or purposeful plagiarism is handing in an essay written by someone else and representing it as your own, copying your essay word for word from a magazine or journal, or downloading an essay from the Internet.

Unintentional or accidental plagiarism is the result of improperly paraphrasing, summarizing, quoting, or citing evidence in academic writing. Generally, writers accidentally plagiarize because they simply don’t know or fail to follow the rules for giving credit to the ideas of others in their writing.

Both intentional and unintentional plagiarism are wrong, against the rules, and can result in harsh punishments. Ignoring or not knowing the rules of how to not plagiarize and properly cite evidence might be an explanation, but it is not an excuse.

How to Avoid Plagiarism

Make Sure You Are Very Certain about What Is and is Not Plagiarism:

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Give Yourself Plenty of Time to Complete an Assignment: Running out of time on an assignment is a common cause of plagiarism. Rushing to meet a deadline can result in carelessness (leading to unintentional plagiarism – see the next tip) and the desire to find a quick, easy solution, such as copying someone else’s work. Don’t give in to that temptation! Plagiarism is a serious academic offense, and the chance of being caught (which is likely) is not worth it.

Document Everything: Plagiarism isn’t always a conscious choice. Sometimes, it can be unintentional, typically resulting from poor documentation of one’s sources during the research phase. For example, sometimes students will write down an idea from a source using words identical to or very close to those in the original, but then when they go to write their paper, they forget that the material was not already in their own words. Adopting good research habits, such as creating citations during the research process, can prevent this type of plagiarism.

When in Doubt, Give a Citation: There are certain types of information – typically referred to as common knowledge – that don’t require a citation when you include them in your writing.  These are facts that are widely known and can be easily found in a number of sources. They are not ideas that originated with one particular source.  Examples include basic scientific facts (for example, that solid, liquid, and gas are three states of matter), general historical information (for example, that George Washington was the first US president), or even information commonly known to certain groups of people but not others (for example, most musicians know that a C major triad includes the notes C, E, and G, even though many non-musicians would have no idea what a C major triad is).

For everything else, you need to include a citation, regardless of whether you are quoting directly from the source, paraphrasing it, or giving a summary. If you are unsure whether something qualifies as common knowledge, give a citation. You can also consult a more experienced figure in your field, such as your instructor, to find out if something counts as common knowledge.