plagiarism and academic honesty essay

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Using Sources, Avoiding Plagiarism, and Academic Honesty

A key expectation of academic work is that what you submit is your own, and that you appropriately source words and ideas that are not your own. Since academic writing involves building on the ideas of others, knowing how to integrate that material with your own thinking is a fundamental skill for success. Writers who simply haven’t practiced that skill may find themselves submitting papers with unintentional plagiarism (which is by far the most common). The resources below explain what plagiarism is, and how to avoid it through careful use of source material, rhetoric, and citations. Please feel free to email us with any thoughts or suggestions!

What is Plagiarism?

Put simply, plagiarism is when you claim the words or ideas of others as your own. Since all work you submit during an academic program is presumed to be yours, even leaving out a citation can lead to unintentional plagiarism. Avoiding plagiarism means knowing how to integrate sources correctly into your writing, understanding the rules of the style guide you’re using, and having a big-picture understanding of academic honesty: the “why” behind all those seemingly arbitrary rules.

• Antioch University Plagiarism Policy

Integrating Sources

Any time you use someone else’s words or ideas (which you do in most academic papers), you need to be careful to track them through your research and drafting phases, attribute them in your writing phases, and ensure they are correctly cited during your final polishing phases. Integrating sources well starts with research–taking good notes, actively synthesizing as you read, and making sure you put other people’s words in quotes in your notes are all ways to avoid accidental plagiarism down the line. As you start to write, you’ll want to use quotations, paraphrases, and syntheses to describe other people’s ideas. Each integrates sources in a different way, and academic writers need to know how to do all three, and when each is appropriate. As you finish your paper, you need to able to include citations in a consistent and appropriate format so that readers of your work can locate the source you used for a given idea. In academic writing, it is expected that your work fits into an ongoing conversation; citing your sources helps your readers know who contributed before you, and how you used their ideas. Reading and Doing Research

• Active Reading Strategies
• Critical Reading Exercises
• Gathering Information
• Evaluating Research Generally
• Evaluating Empirical Research
• The Art of Integrating Sources
• Using Quotations
• A Short Guide to Paraphrasing

Style and Citations

Regardless of your field and specialty, you can rest assured that you will need to cite your sources and abide by the rules of a style guide. These resources focus on helping you manage those expectations, especially around the particulars of things like APA style.

• Citation Managers
• Antioch Seattle MA Psych Style Guidelines
• An Overview of APA Style
• Common Mistakes in APA Style

Other Resources:

• Visit the American Psychological Association website for updated information regarding APA style and formatting guidelines for writing in the psychology and social sciences.
• Visit the Modern Language Association website for updated information regarding MLA style and formatting guidelines for writing in the humanities.

  Academic Honesty

Part of academic writing is also managing your time and working sufficiently in advance to do your work well. If you are working at the last minute or find yourself committed, you may find yourself tempted to leave out a citation, to appropriate a quote, or even to copy and paste text from a source without attribution. While everyone understands the desperation that can lead to academic dishonesty, the choice to engage in intentional plagiarism is a serious breach of conduct with serious consequences. In an academic program, it can lead to your being put on academic probation or kicked out of the University. Beyond student writing, plagiarism can cause you to lose all credibility in your field and destroy your academic or professional career.

Healthy Approaches to Plagiarism: A Collaborative Response

Dorothy Capers,  AUS PsyD Student & Anne Maxham, Ph.D., Director of Writing Support   Plagiarism today goes beyond the flagrant taking of another’s piece of writing and turning it as your own. With the internet, facile copying and pasting of others’ words can wreak havoc on your academic integrity.

Caveat Scriptor!

(Writer Beware!)

Overview: Plagiarism is fundamentally the act of taking others’ words and using them as your own. The range of what identifies as plagiarism is complex: it may be intentional or unintentional; it may be in the form of paraphrases without citing the source, or word for word (seven or more words in sequence from the original source); or padding your writing with longer passages without citations. Being charged with “academic dishonesty” or “plagiarism” is a gut-wrenching experience that no student wants to risk. The impact of being questioned about your authenticity can result in losing confidence as a writer and even have you doubt your purpose in studying at the university. Beyond the emotional effects, other consequences can be dire, and sometimes result in failing the class, being put on academic probation, and worst of all expulsion from the university. All writers need to take precautions and make efforts to ensure that your writing is “all yours” and that you properly cite others’ words and ideas. One scenario of why it can happen to anyone: Many of us now compose directly on the computer and frequently have multiple documents opened at any given time. We “read” to find information to use in our writing. Frequently, we jump from online articles to our own document, copying and pasting material. At times, we’re writing papers with quick deadlines, and we might rush through this all-important step of first understanding the article content. Rather than fully “digesting texts,” we read for important information and key points to include in the paper. Our notes become lifted passages from texts rather than summarizing in our own words. We research and read for “context” rather than the “content”; that is, we read to finish our writing rather than fully understanding the topic or content. What you can do: To avoid unintentional plagiarism, stop long enough in your reading to think about what the author is saying. Put it in your own words. There’s an inherent danger in copying text and pasting into your own notes. And in doing so, writers can naively create a “fertile environment” for plagiarism to occur.  And it happens not just in academia. Take a look at what happened to well-known authors, and the consequences can ruin a career. Or musicians and the long lawsuits that follow. Remember, James Frey and the scandal after Oprah had selected his Million Little Pieces as one of her “reads”? Oprah felt betrayed and used. Her anger was palpable when she publicly lambasted him in her program: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewC-KIe5qng http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2011/1208/5-famous-plagiarism-and-fraud-accusations-in-the-book-world/Alex-Haley And recently, Neil Gorsuch was accused of plagiarizing parts of his book: http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/gorsuch-writings-supreme-court-236891 So, we’ve developed this resource to help students take proactive measures to be academically honest. Before we move into the nitty gritty, we have some fundamentals:

• First, create a “working bibliography” of your resources. Put a number or a letter next to each and use that notation next to your quotes & paraphrases. That way, the sources for all quotes/paraphrases are identified.
• Cite all direct quotes, paraphrases, statistics, and unique ideas. Take the extra time to put quotation marks around words that are not yours. And don’t forget to post the page number of all direct quotes.
• direct quotes = citation
• paraphrases = citation
• statistics = citation
• unique concepts = citation
• when in doubt = citation
• If you’re not sure, you should seek writing support with your writing center or the VWC.

The Academic Conversation For those who want to write original work, learning how to enter the academic conversation is fundamental. While the academy is a place for active debate, most of us read materials given to us as passive “voyeurs” of a text. Of course, this is saying something about the implicit/explicit power dynamic between the faculty member and the student. Do we read to highlight what we think the faculty member wants us to read? Or do we read to wrestle with ideas? Frankly, given the reality that most of us read multiple texts each week, we’re lucky if we “digest” even one text.  The fact that most of us read – or submit a text— seldom questioning its content, style, or the intent of the author shows that we may be disempowered in the academic enterprise. Many students don’t realize that writing forces a reader to “digest” the material and to summarize as well as validate assertions by referring to the experts. So, active reading is essential in bringing the reader into the discourse. Since there are deep and multiple connections between reading and writing, we all need to learn and use strategies of active, critical reading (See the VWC Resources: “ Active Reading Strategies” and “ Critical Reading Exercises” )

If we think about academic reading and writing as a conversation, students have to carry the researchers forward in the conversation, even those with opposing views. Writing a paper is entering the conversation in an attempt to inform the reader of your unique learning through summarizing, paraphrasing, and citing other researchers. Ways to ensure Academic Authenticity: Validating that your writing is authentically yours and accurately reflecting your understanding of the topic begins early in your writing process.  Before writing, verify that you understand the assignment. Ask questions and request examples from the faculty member. Remember, what your instructors wants in an assignment is most important for your success. If you don’t understand, ask classmates and go to the writing center for additional support. Taking Notes: Take “real notes”: Don’t just lift full lines or passages from your reading. Be sure to write all notes in your own words, or put quotes around texts. If you’ve paraphrased, you still need to cite. So, put ( ) and the author, date, pg number. Defining the goals of your literature review will guide both your reading and your note-taking.   Peg Single Boyle, author of Demystifying Dissertation Writing (2009), offers a clear approach to “Citable Notetaking”:

• Pre-read your articles before taking notes
• Keep track of what’s summarized, paraphrased, or quoted.
• Choose  consistent formats for your notes. For example: If more than one article set up a spreadsheet to identify authors, article theme and quotes and paraphrases. This will help with putting your outline together when you start to write  (p 55-78).

The Virtual Writing Center has other resources available at the top of this page to help guide you to academic success. Tutorials: Want to see how much you know or don’t know about plagiarism? Spend a productive hour watching the tutorials and then take the “Certification Test” at the Indiana University resource: Tutorial: https://www.indiana.edu/~academy/firstPrinciples/tutorials/index.html Test: https://www.indiana.edu/~academy/firstPrinciples/certificationTests/index.html Finally: As a member of a discipline, you’re responsible to learn the style sheet of your field of practice (APA, Chicago, MLA, etc.).  Use online resources and manuals relevant to your field. If you’re unclear, seek help and work one-one with Mentor/VWC.  If you want professional help, go to the AU Writers’ Exchange (wex.antioch.edu).  Also review this handy checklist for APA Style that was designed for writers to refer to prior to submitting their papers. Writing support is designed to help students. With friendly student peer consultants, you may talk about your writing and get the support you need. You’re not alone.    References Boyle, P.S. (2009).  Demystifying dissertation writing. Stylus Pub: New York.

Resources for Faculty

• Responding to Plagiarism
• Plagiarism Checklist for Faculty

Academic Resources: Bronwyn T. Williams (2008). Trust, betrayal, and authorship: Plagiarism and how we perceive students.   Journal of Adolescent and and Adult Literacy 51 :4, 350 – 354. Abstract: Emotional responses to plagiarism are rarely addressed in professional literature that focuses on ethics and good teaching practices. Yet, the emotions that are unleashed by cases of plagiarism, or suspicions of plagiarism, influence how we perceive our students and how we approach teaching them. Such responses have been complicated by online plagiarism-detection services that emphasize surveillance and detection. My opposition to such plagiarism software services grows from the conviction that if we use them we are not only poisoning classroom relationships, but also we are missing important opportunities for teaching.

Howard, R., & Robillard, A. (2008). Pluralizing plagiarism : Identities, contexts, pedagogies . Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook. Pluralizing Plagiarism offers multiple answers to this question — answers that insist on taking into account the rhetorical situations in which plagiarism occurs. While most scholarly publications on plagiarism mirror mass media’s attempts to reduce the issue to simple black-and-white statements, the contributors to Pluralizing Plagiarism recognize that it takes place not in universalized realms of good and bad, but in specific contexts in which students’ cultural backgrounds often play a role. Teachers concerned about plagiarism can best address the issue in the classroom — especially the first-year composition classroom — as part of writing pedagogy and not just as a matter for punishment and prohibition. . . “–Back cover.

Price, M. (2002). Beyond “Gotcha!”: Situating plagiarism in policy and pedagogy. College Composition and Communication, 54 (1), 88-115 Abstract:Plagiarism is difficult, if not impossible, to define. In this paper, I argue for a context-sensitive understanding of plagiarism by analyzing a set of written institutional policies and suggesting ways that they might be revised. In closing, I offer examples of classroom practices to help teach a concept of plagiarism as situated in context.

What is the difference between academic integrity and plagiarism?

Starting with the basics, what you need to know about academic integrity in order to uphold student learning, original thinking, and protect your institution's reputation.

Here are five essential components of establishing a culture of academic integrity on campus and online.

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Plagiarism is often discussed hand-in-hand with issues surrounding academic integrity. In many instances, they are used interchangeably.

And while plagiarism is indeed an act of academic dishonesty and academic misconduct, it isn’t the entirety of academic integrity.

Academic integrity is the commitment to live by these values. Plagiarism is an aspect of academic integrity in that using another's ideas, words, theories, illustrations or graphics, opinions or facts without giving credit is dishonest.

Let’s go deeper by examining and defining academic integrity as a whole.

The International Center for Academic Integrity “defines academic integrity as a commitment, even in the face of adversity, to six fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage . From these values flow principles of behavior that enable academic communities to translate ideals into action”

Let’s examine the five pillars of academic integrity:

• Honesty : being truthful is a fundamental tenet of academic integrity—and in writing, this translates to giving credit to the owner of the work in the form of attribution. It is also about being objective; for educators, this means assessing student work without prejudice.
• Trust : trusting in the reliability of student work is critical to academic integrity. In the classroom, this is demonstrated by setting clear expectations and upholding those expectations in assessments.
• Fairness : avoiding favoritism is another aspect of academic integrity. This means applying rules consistently and taking responsibility for your own actions in the form of rubrics and other acts of educational fairness.
• Respect : holding everyone in high esteem is part of academic integrity as well. Respect is shown in students taking assignments and learning seriously and receiving feedback. Educators in turn, too, ought to provide feedback and show empathy for students.
• Responsibility and Courage : being reliable and trustworthy is fundamental to academic integrity. Students ought to stand up against wrongdoing while educators create and uphold classroom and institutional policies. ( ICAI , 2021)

According to research by Guerrero-Dib, Portales, and Heredia-Escorza, “Academic integrity is much more than avoiding dishonest practices such as copying during exams, plagiarizing or contract cheating; it implies an engagement with learning and work which is well done, complete, and focused on a good purpose— learning. It also involves using appropriate means, genuine effort and good skills. Mainly it implies diligently taking advantage of all learning experiences” ( International Journal for Educational Integrity, 2020 ).

Academic dishonesty, or the violation of academic integrity principles as shown above manifests in different ways and in different forms of misconduct as shown in our emerging trends blog posts, such as collusion , copying, usage of electronic cheating devices, utilizing online test banks , abuse of word spinners , self-plagiarism , and of course, plagiarism.

Plagiarism, or using the ideas or words of another and claiming them as one’s own original idea, violates all the components of academic integrity. Plagiarism, specifically, is a subset of academic dishonesty, and one way to violate academic integrity.

It’s easy to see how academic integrity and plagiarism are interchangeable, but it’s also important to understand the difference between plagiarism and academic integrity as you navigate the student educational journey.

Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty

Adapted from the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook . Read an adapted version of the guidelines in Spanish .

Occasionally an author or public speaker is accused of plagiarism. No doubt you have had classroom conversations about plagiarism and academic dis­honesty. Your school may have an honor code that addresses academic dis­honesty; your school almost certainly has disciplinary procedures meant to address plagiarism. But you may not be sure what exactly this offense is and how to avoid committing it.

What Plagiarism Is and Why It’s a Serious Matter

Plagiarism is presenting another person’s ideas, words, or entire work as your own. Plagiarism may sometimes have legal repercussions (e.g., when it involves copyright infringement) but is always unethical.

Plagiarism can take a number of forms. Copying a published or unpub­lished text of any length, whether deliberately or accidentally, is plagiarism if you don’t give credit to the source. Paraphrasing someone’s ideas or argu­ments or copying someone’s unique wording without giving proper credit is plagiarism. Turning in a paper or thesis written by someone else, even if you paid for it, is plagiarism.

It’s even possible to plagiarize yourself. In published work, if you reuse ideas or phrases that you used in prior work and do not cite your prior work, you have plagiarized. Many schools’ academic honesty policies prohibit the reuse of one’s prior work in papers, theses, and dissertations, even with self-citation. (Sometimes, however, revising and building on your earlier work is useful and productive for intellectual growth; if you want to reuse portions of your previously written work in an educational context, ask your instructor.)

When writers and public speakers are exposed as plagiarists in profes­sional contexts, they may lose their jobs and are certain to suffer public embarrassment, diminished prestige, and loss of credibility. One instance of plagiarism can cast a shadow across an entire career because plagiarism reflects poorly on a person’s judgment, integrity, and honesty and calls into question everything about that person’s work. The consequences of plagia­rism aren’t just personal, however. The damage done is also social. Ulti­mately, plagiarism is serious because it erodes public trust in information.

Avoiding Plagiarism

To read our guidelines about avoiding plagiarism, see 4.2–4.11, freely available sections on MLA Handbook Plus , the only authorized subscription-based digital resource featuring the  MLA Handbook , available for unlimited simultaneous users at subscribing institutions.

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Central to any academic writing project is crediting (or citing) someone else' words or ideas. The following sites will help you understand academic writing expectations.

Academic integrity is truthful and responsible representation of yourself and your work by taking credit only for your own ideas and creations and giving credit to the work and ideas of other people. It involves providing attribution (citations and acknowledgments) whenever you include the intellectual property of others—and even your own if it is from a previous project or assignment. Academic integrity also means generating and using accurate data.

Responsible and ethical use of information is foundational to a successful teaching, learning, and research community. Not only does it promote an environment of trust and respect, it also facilitates intellectual conversations and inquiry. Citing your sources shows your expertise and assists others in their research by enabling them to find the original material. It is unfair and wrong to claim or imply that someone else’s work is your own.

Failure to uphold the values of academic integrity at the GSD can result in serious consequences, ranging from re-doing an assignment to expulsion from the program with a sanction on the student’s permanent record and transcript. Outside of academia, such infractions can result in lawsuits and damage to the perpetrator’s reputation and the reputation of their firm/organization. For more details see the Academic Integrity Policy at the GSD. 

The GSD’s Academic Integrity Tutorial can help build proficiency in recognizing and practicing ways to avoid plagiarism.

• Avoiding Plagiarism (Purdue OWL) This site has a useful summary with tips on how to avoid accidental plagiarism and a list of what does (and does not) need to be cited. It also includes suggestions of best practices for research and writing.
• How Not to Plagiarize (University of Toronto) Concise explanation and useful Q&A with examples of citing and integrating sources.

This fast-evolving technology is changing academia in ways we are still trying to understand, and both the GSD and Harvard more broadly are working to develop policies and procedures based on careful thought and exploration. At the moment, whether and how AI may be used in student work is left mostly to the discretion of individual instructors. There are some emerging guidelines, however, based on overarching values.

Since policies are changing rapidly, we recommend checking the links below often for new developments, and this page will continue to update as we learn more.

• Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) from HUIT Harvard's Information Technology team has put together this webpage explaining AI and curating resources about initial guidelines, recommendations for prompts, and recommendations of tools with a section specifically on image-based tools.
• Generative AI in Teaching and Learning at the GSD The GSD's evolving policies, information, and guidance for the use of generative AI in teaching and learning at the GSD are detailed here. The policies section includes questions to keep in mind about privacy and copyright, and the section on tools lists AI tools supported at the GSD.
• AI Code of Conduct by MetaLAB A Harvard-affiliated collaborative comprised of faculty and students sets out recommendations for guidelines for the use of AI in courses. The policies set out here are not necessarily adopted by the GSD, but they serve as a good framework for your own thinking about academic integrity and the ethical use of AI.
• Prompt Writing Examples for ChatGPT+ Harvard Libraries created this resource for improving results through crafting better prompts.
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Preventing Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty Tutorial

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• Types of Plagiarism
• Consequences of Plagiarism
• What to Cite
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• Plagiarism Checkers

What is Academic Integrity?

Academic Integrity is defined as, a commitment, even in the face of adversity, to six fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage. From these values flow principles of behavior that enable academic communities to translate ideals to action. -The International Center for Academic Integrity

Academic study requires you to learn from others, while academic integrity demands work resulting from your own effort. As a student, you will combine others’ knowledge with your own insights to create new scholarship. You must recognize the portion of your work that comes from others’ work to meet standards of academic integrity, and this is done by citing (also known as referencing) the work of others. Originality is key in the principles of academic writing. When producing academic writing, it must be clear if an idea is your own or you found it somewhere else. Naming the sources of your research is so essential in academic writing that not citing your sources is deemed a “crime” of academic dishonesty -  the crime of plagiarism. Plagiarism is the most frequently observed form of academic dishonesty.

After this short knowledge check, you may download or print a report that summarizes your results.

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Quick Tips For Avoiding Plagiarism

• Read carefully :  Read through your assignment instructions carefully.  Understand your sources by reading them closely.
• Take good notes :  Print out sources and write notes on the pages or take notes digitally.  Keep track of where your information is coming from.
• Avoid procrastination :  It can be tempting to take shortcuts when you run out of time to do your assignment.
• Quoting vs paraphrasing vs summarizing :  See the advice on this page and know when it is appropriate to quote, paraphrase, or summarize your source.

What To Do When You're Struggling To Write

What Is Plagiarism?

The Council of Writing Program Administrators defines plagiarism in an instructional context as "occur[ing] when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source.  This definition applies to texts published in print or on-line, to manuscripts, and to the work of other student writers."  Plagiarism and citing sources incorrectly are two different situations.  If writers make every effort to cite sources accurately but do not cite adequately or do not use the correct citation style, they are not plagiarizing.  Plagiarism occurs when a writer intentionally takes credit for someone else's ideas or words.

Types of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is perhaps the most common form of academic dishonesty.  However, there are many types of plagiarism, and most plagiarism is not intentional. Frequently, it is the result of taking insufficient notes when reading your sources. Below are several types of plagiarism of which you should be aware.

Accidental Plagiarism

• Forgetting to place quotation marks around another's words
• Omitting a source citation for another's idea because you are unaware
• Carelessly copying a source which you mean to paraphrase

Intentional Plagiarism

• Copying a phrase, sentence, or passage from a source and passing it off as your own
• Summarizing or paraphrasing someone else's ideas without acknowledging your debt
• Handing in a paper you bought or had a friend write or copied from another student

The library has created a graphic representation to show you the range of intentional and unintentional plagiarism activities .

Avoiding Plagiarism

There are many online tools to help you with the research and writing processes.  Learning a few new tips can save you time, lead to better research notes, and help avoid plagiarism.

• Sweetland Writing Guide : How Do I Effectively Integrate Textual Evidence? Advice on how to quote, paraphrase, and summarize other people's writing into your own.
• Sweetland Writing Guide : How Do I Incorporate Quotes? This guide specifically focuses on integrating quotes into your work and illustrates why it is important to do so.
• Beyond Plagiarism : Best Practices for the Responsible Use of Sources Collaboratively created by the University of Michigan's Sweetland Writing Center and Library, this online tutorial will teach you how to use resources effectively and responsibly.
• Plagiarism.Org A wealth of resources created to not only help you understand plagiarism but also to provide exercises and resources to avoid plagiarism.
• Library Guide For International Students : What Is Plagiarism From a Research Guide created by the library, this resource focuses on identifying resources and strategies that center on Western European and North American plagiarism standards.
• Ask a Librarian Services Consider meeting in person with a librarian or using one of the many virtual ways of contacting a librarian to help you identify plagiarism and learn how to incorporate evidence without plagiarizing.

In addition, consider asking your instructor or professor how you might avoid plagiarism in your work.  It can be difficult to avoid plagiarism without practice and your professor/instructor may have some specific advice to help you in this area.

Plagiarism Tutorials

These instructional tools provide more tips and practice on both recognizing and avoiding plagiarism.  Use these resources to identify what you have already mastered and what skills or concepts you might need to strengthen.

• Academic Integrity Quiz An academic integrity tutorial designed to introduce you to UM's LSA community standards of academic integrity.
• How to Recognize Plagiarism: Tutorials and Tests Indiana University's tutorial on identifying plagiarism

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Student Manual

Why have we created this page?

Like all your fellow students, you have come here to learn and to succeed academically in pursuit of your dreams. We are providing this brochure to help you understand the importance of the rules in place. We want you to do honest work and help you avoid mistakes. We don’t want you to violate rules you may not have fully understood. Please read on for some of the rules of academic honesty and some practical illustrations on what you must know at the University of Chicago.

Let us start with three key points : 1)     The rules of academic honesty are sometimes not well understood, but they are very important and following them is vital to your education and success at the University of Chicago and in academic life in general; 2)     You are expected to know and follow the key rules even if they are different from the rules you learned in your home country or in previous experience; 3)     If you are not sure about a situation, talk to your professor, consult with someone in the Writing Program, or contact your adviser at OIA. We are always happy to help you sort out a problem in advance. We suggest that you do not ask fellow students (except for your TA). They may not give you an accurate answer, and they are not the ones giving you a grade for the work done, so an error made on the advice of another student can get you in trouble.

What do we mean by honest work ?

Honest work may mean something different to you as an international student than to your professors at the University of Chicago. However, at the University of Chicago you must abide by the standards of U.S. academic life. These same standards apply to everyone, including your professors! You do honest work when: 1)     You say you did the work yourself, you actually did it. 2)     You rely on someone else’s work, you cite it. When you use their words, you quote them openly and accurately, and you cite them, too. 3)     You present research materials, you present them fairly and truthfully. That’s true whether the research involves data, document, or the writings of other scholars. (Lipson 2004: 3)

What is plagiarism?

“It is not a parking ticket. It's a highway crash. If it looks deliberate, it's a highway crash without seatbelts.” (Lipson 2004: 32)

Simply put, plagiarism is using words and thoughts of others as if they were your own. Any time you borrow from an original source and do not give proper credit, you have committed plagiarism. While there are different degrees and types of plagiarism, plagiarism is not just about honesty, it is also a violation of property law and is illegal. Therefore cite – proper citations do not make you look less smart and do not make you less of an academic.

What are the consequences of plagiarism? We know that students do not want to plagiarize and fully intend to follow all rules in place. But, for a number of reasons and in a number of ways, plagiarism does occur, and the consequences are severe.  An instructor may assign you a grade of F for an assignment or even for the course where you were found to have plagiarized. You may also become subject to the University’s discipline procedures* which can result in sanctions that severely disrupt or even end your studies at the University. Not citing properly or plagiarizing jeopardizes not only your future at the University of Chicago but your future in general. *Please see http://studentmanual.uchicago.edu .

Consider the examples below: Example A: The original passage: “ Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes.” Lester, James. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47. A legitimate paraphrase: In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47). An acceptable summary: Students should take just a few notes in direct quotation from sources to help minimize the amount of quoted material in a research paper (Lester 46-47). A plagiarized version: Students often use too many direct quotations when they take notes, resulting in too many of them in the final research paper. In fact, probably only about 10% of the final copy should consist of directly quoted material. So it is important to limit the amount of source material copied while taking notes.   Source: Purdue Writing Lab

Example B: The original passage: Joe Blow was a happy man, who often walked down the road whistling and singing. (Sentence in the book Joe Blow: His Life and Times, by Jay Scrivener) A correct citation (example): According to Scrivener, Joe Blow was “a happy man,” who often showed it by singing tunes to himself.” 99 OR Joe Blow appeared happy and enjoyed whistling and singing to himself. 99 A wrong/plagiarized version: Joe Blow was a happy man and often walked down the road singing and whistling. (no citation) OR Joe Blow appeared to be “a happy man” and often walked down the road whistling and singing. 99  

Helpful Tip: There is not much to recommend for a frantic 2am writing besides taking a deep breath and one more cup of coffee. But perhaps one thing may be helpful: try to use Refworks to keep track of your sources. That way, you will not forget to compile a proper bibliography. Also p ractice paraphrasing and learn how NOT to plagiarize: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/04/ Source: Charles Lipson , Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism and Achieve Real Academic Success

• Charles Lipson’s books on academic integrity :  http://www.charleslipson.com/Reading-Writing-Plagiarism-and-Academic-Hon...

UChicago Online Resources:

• English Language Institute  https://esl.uchicago.edu/ayc/

Assistance in building English proficiency.

• Citation Management  http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/citation_management

A helpful guide on how to use citation management tools such as RefWorks, EndNote, and Zotero.

•   Citing Resources  http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/cite

A detailed guide to citation from the University of Chicago Library. Includes instructions on locating and using major citation manuals and style guides, as well as information about using RefWorks bibliographic management tool.

•    RefWorks  http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/refworks

RefWorks is a web-based bibliographic management tool provided by the University of Chicago Library that makes creating bibliographies and citing resources quick and easy. The Library's RefWorks' web site links to information about classes and extensive online tutorials, as well as help guides on keeping organized and citing resources using RefWorks' Write-N-Cite feature.

• The University of Chicago Dissertation Office  http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/phd/

Special style guidelines required by the University of Chicago for dissertations, as well as information on permissions and copyright.  It is located in Room 100B of the Joseph Regenstein Library.

• Writing in College: A Short Guide to College Writing  http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/resources/collegewriting/

A helpful guide by Joseph M. Williams and Lawrence McEnerney designed for College students writing papers in the Humanities Core and Social Sciences Core sequences.

Other Online Resources

• Chicago Manual of Style   http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html
• Purdue Writing Lab:  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/9/
• University of British Columbia Writing Lab  http://www.unbc.ca/asc/writing_support/online_resources.html
• Resources and facts about plagiarism: http://www.plagarism.org
• International Center for Academic Integrity : http://www.academicintegrity.org/index.php
• CriticalThinkerAcademy  http://www.criticalthinkeracademy.com/academy/how-to-cite-sources-and-avoid-plagiarism/
• Online video tutorial on Plagiarism: "You Can't Just Change a Few Words"   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK7PdBBG5po

Essay Writing & Academic Honesty

Plagiarism is a serious offence and is dealt with strictly in this School. It refers to the passing off of another person’s work as your own.  It includes, but is not limited to the following:

• Using an entire paper written by someone else as your own.
• Taking sentences or paragraphs from other papers or texts and including them in your paper without placing quotation marks around them, together with the source, including page numbers. (While exact quotations of lines or paragraphs are usually appropriate within a paper, they should take up no more than a very small percentage of the entire paper.).
• Paraphrasing lines or paragraphs from another paper or text without attributing the source of the ideas through use of references.
• Handing in the same or a very similar paper to two separate courses also constitutes an academic offence.

Most students who plagiarize do so because they try to write their essays at the last minute. Good essay writing requires time. If students cannot get their work in on time, they should approach their professors for an extension.

Please note the following:

• Familiar yourself with the Senate Policy on Academic Honesty
• Test your knowledge of plagiarism and academic integrity with this online tutorial .
• Students found guilty of such an infraction may have a permanent record of their receiving an “F” placed on their transcripts.
• This “F” would remain on record even if the course is repeated and an additional course grade is received and recorded.
• It will be clear to any reader of the transcript that the background to receiving an “F” being placed on a transcript in such a manner is one of academic dishonesty.
• You not only jeopardize your passing of this course but you also may jeopardize your entire future by engaging in academic dishonesty.

How to Write an Argumentative Essay

The following outline attempts to show you how to construct a good essay: it represents, in as simple a form as possible, the basic pattern to follow in putting together any “argument paper” whether this paper is a class essay, a dissertation, or an article designed for publication. An “argument paper” is best defined simply as a paper which states a thesis, or says something, and attempts to back up or support this thesis with evidence or arguments which tend to convince the reader of the truth and validity of this thesis; this kind of paper, we may say, is distinct from the kind of paper which merely presents information. (Also, the argument paper is more interesting, both to write and to read). These instructions are presented in outline form merely to make it more apparent that a good essay is put together step by step. If you are writing outside of class you will be able to follow this outline at your leisure; if you are writing in class, or answering an essay question on an exam, you still should mentally follow this outline to construct your essay before you start to write.

Form a good, strong thesis sentence, stating what you propose to show.

This is the most important part of the whole process, the foundation upon which your whole essay is constructed, and it must be the first thing done; until you have written the thesis sentence it is useless to try writing anything else. Given a topic, assemble your material and review it (mentally if in class or during an exam) until you are familiar enough with this material to form an opinion or judgment about your topic. This opinion or judgment is the stand you are taking on this particular topic and it will be the conclusion which your entire essay will try to establish and support. This is your thesis sentence; and this is why the thesis sentence has to come first when you start to construct an essay.

• Build your argument to support this thesis sentence. Return to your assembled material. Go through it again, and this time copy down every argument, every bit of evidence, or every reason you can find in it which will support your conclusion. After you have done this you should be able to tell whether your conclusion is valid or not. If you cannot find enough support to convince you yourself of the validity of your own conclusion, you should discard your thesis sentence and form a new one. Never attempt to argue on behalf of something which you yourself do not believe; if you do, your paper will not be any good.
• Arrange your argument to produce the maximum effect upon the reader. Go through the evidence on separate arguments you have copied down and arrange them in the order of their strength. Usually it is best to start with the weakest and end with the strongest; this arrangement is not always possible, but when it can be done your argument will accumulate more force as it progresses. If this type of arrangement cannot be used, merely arrange the arguments in the order in which they will appear in your paper. Along with each argument, list any contrary arguments. You must state these fully and fairly, but show that on balance your viewpoint is to be favoured. If you ignore them, your essay will be weak, one-sided and unconvincing.
• Write your outline. Begin with the thesis sentence. Always write complete sentences. A brief introduction is needed if any questions or terms have to be defined before you start your argument; otherwise it is optional. Roman numeral “I” will be the first argument or reason in support of your conclusion. Roman numeral “II” will be the second argument – and so on – as you have already arranged these arguments in order. Just as the Roman numeral entries must support your conclusion, so must the subhead entries under each Roman numeral support that particular argument. (usually by clarifying, explaining, or the citing of examples). Copy your thesis sentence word for word as the conclusion at the end of your outline. (this may seem a bit of an insult to your intelligence, but if your outline has gone astray you will find that your thesis sentence will no longer fit in the position it was originally created to occupy. Thus, but doing this you can sometimes save yourself time and wasted effort.)
• Are there any self-contradictory concepts in it?
• Is any of your material irrelevant?
• Does each argument follow logically from everything preceding it?
• Are there any gaps in your reasoning?
• Are there any terms which need to be defined?
• Have you made any dogmatic statements?
• Write the paper itself. About three fourths of your work should be done before you reach this step. If steps 1 to 5 are done well and carefully, the paper should just about write itself.
• References. Use the APA style for references (reproduced following this).
• Proofread your paper and do it at least twice before submitting – more times if possible. Do not rely on a spell checker.
• Never write anything which will be read by others unless you proofread it to the best of your ability. This is one rule that is rigidly observed by all mature scholars and authors who have been writing for years.) Proofread for thought and style, and again check the list in section V. Also, does your paper read smoothly and easily? (Read it out loud, if possible, and you will find out.) Proofread for mechanical errors. Check all questionable spellings. Check all the minimum standard requirements.

*Major portion of the above has been reproduced with permission from the Department of Political Science, University of Western Ontario.

For further assistance:

Pre-Writing Tutorial and Quiz

The Writing Department – refer to P.   59

APA Style Guide

6th edition APA Publication Guid e    ( WARNING : This sheet shows some common reference list entries in APA style. It does not cover every type of entry. The absolute authority for APA style is the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition, available at most libraries or for purchase at most bookstores and the APA Website.)

Paper Sources

Book with one author:[title in italics ]

Doe, J. (2002). Human study of inadequacy . Boston: Little, Brown.

Book with more than one author:[title in italics ]

• List all the authors – by last name & initials. Use & (not and ).
• If more than 6-authors, list the first 6, then et al. (Latin for and others ).

Spock, D. & Kirk, C. (2001). Outer space travel: facts and myths. Washington, DC: Outthere Publications.

Book with an editor:[title in italics ]

Gibbs, J.T. & Huang, L.N. (Eds.). (1991). Children of color: psychological interventions with minority youth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Book by an organization or group as author:[title in italics ]

When the author & the publisher are the same, list the word Author at the end of the citation.

American Bureau of Statistics. (2005). Census Bureau extrapolations for Tampa, Florida. Washington, DC: Author.

Encyclopedia or dictionary:[title in italics ]

Williams, B. (1990). Babylon. In The new grove dictionary of music and musicians (Vol. 33, pp.56-60). London: Macmillan.

An article in a scholarly journal:[journal title in italics ]

Jones, E. (2004). The mating habits of anorexic minnows. Journal of Creative Fish Watching, 60 , 534-544.

A magazine article:[journal title in italics ]

Density, A. & Manioto, C. (2003, January). How much does a beggar make? Psychology Tomorrow , 66 , 23-25.

A newspaper article with an author:[newspaper name in italics ]

Mullins, M.B. (2003, November 23). The health care crisis. The New York Times , pp. A3, A5.

A newspaper article without an author:[newspaper name in italics ]

Study finds less money for grades. (2005, September 19). Los Angeles Times , p. 14.

Electronic Sources

An Internet article based on a print source:[source name in italics ]

Wertheimer, R. (n.d.). Revisiting Florida’s chads, seeking lessons and jokes.[Electronic Version]. Journal of Voting . Retrieved September 15, 2005, from http://www.votingjournal.com

In the above example, no date was given in the work and (n.d.) is used.

An article in a searchable database:[source name in italics ]

Nosnoozy, D.R. (2002). Sleep is for sissies. Nation’s Business , 76 , 34-38. Retrieved November 25, 2005, from WilsonSelectPlus database.

A Web page:[title of Web page – if given – in italics ]

Do not underline Websites.

Sample Reference List

Doe, J. (2002). Human study of inadequacy. Boston: Little Brown.

McDuck, S. (2002). Psychology Web by Scrooge McDuck. Retrieved November 31, 2005, from http:www.quackpsych.com

Mullins, M.B. (2003, November 23). The health care crisis. The New York Times, pp.A3, A5.

Nosnoozy, D.R. (2002). Sleep is for sissies. Nation’s Business, 76 , 34-38. Retrieved November 25, 2005, from WilsonSelectPlus database.

Spock, D. & Kirk, C. (2001) Outer space travel: facts and myths. Washington, DC: Outthere Publications.

Please keep in mind that every period, every comma, every colon, and all other punctuation marks, italics , and indentations are very important! Be sure to include them.

Discover more

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Calumet College

Plagiarism and Academic Honesty: Academic Honesty

• Plagiarism Overview
• Academic Honesty
• Types of Plagiarism
• Form and Content
• What do you need to cite (giving credit)?
• Paraphrasing Techniques

What is "academic honesty"? - some definitions

Academic honesty or academic integrity is a set of values held by the academic community. These values are defined by the Centre for Academic Integrity  (academicintegrity.org)  as "commitment, even in the face of adversity, to...honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility."

There are   four basic types of academic dishonesty : cheating, facilitation (helping someone else cheat), plagiarism, and fabrication (making something up). Sometimes plagiarism is used as a catch-all term for all kinds of academic dishonesty. Plagiarism is using somebody else's ideas or expression of ideas (writing, art, music, speech, etc.) and representing them as your own.

More specifically,   plagiarism is the "unattributed use of a source of information that is not considered common knowledge. Three acts are considered plagiarism: (1) failing to cite quotations and borrowed ideas, (2) failing to enclose borrowed language in quotation marks, and (3) failing to put summaries and paraphrases in your own words." ~~Diana Hacker,  A Pocket Style Manual

St. Paul's Statement on Plagiarism and Academic Honesty

Penalties for academic dishonesty:.

Note: Subject to the discretion of the VPS and the seriousness of the offense, over the entire time of a student's enrollment at St. Paul's, cheating and plagiarism (the sharing of individual work that will be graded) is dealt with according to the following process:

X i) For the first offense the student will receive a grade of zero and given a Charge slip,

X X ii) For the second offense, the student will receive a grade of zero, and be moved to the end of the Discipline system. (15)

Academic Integrity video - University of Alberta

Cheating by the University of Alberta.

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• MC3 Library

Academic Honesty and Avoiding Plagiarism

• What is Plagiarism?
• Introduction

Finding Your Authentic Self - A Story of Academic Honesty and Avoiding Plagiarism

Examples of plagiarism in the news, example #1: history, example #2: engineering, example #3: journalism, tips to avoid plagiarism.

• What is Citation?
• When Do You Need to Cite?
• What Citation Style Do I Use?
• Citation in speeches and presentations
• To Cite or Not Cite? That is the Question!
• What is Academic Dishonesty?
• How Do I Avoid Academic Dishonesty?
• What are the Consequences of Academic Dishonesty?
• Test Your Knowledge
• Questions? Ask a Librarian!

The Scenario

Here's a scenario: You showed a classmate an essay response that you wrote for a class that they missed.

You find out later that they didn’t just use if for inspiration, but copied it exactly. And submitted it.

This could get you in trouble in your class, but more than that, it’s also extremely unfair. You did the work. They didn’t. Why should they expect to get the same amount of credit?

What they did is called plagiarism. It's the act of appropriating someone else's work and lying about it in the process.

In the scenario, the classmate copied your work word for word, without giving you the credit. It’s as if they crossed out your name at the top and wrote in their own.

Clearly not the intent of the assignment, and it certainly didn’t help them hone their critical thinking skills.

Suppose the classmate took your essay, and then reworded it so it wasn’t exactly the same as the original. Is that better?

No! If they didn’t give credit to their source - you - then they are still stealing your work and lying about it.

Is it better if they changed the order of the words and attributed it to someone else, like an expert in the field? Absolutely not, that's plagiarism.

What if they fed it into a generative AI program, and had it generate an essay response? That's plagiarism, too.

And finally, what if you chose to help them out, writing a fresh essay response that you are willing to let them hand in as their own?

Argh, that’s the worst one yet! Doing someone else’s work for them, regardless of the reason, is still plagiarism, and both of you stand to face consequences.

The Consequences

What are the consequences? The Student Academic Code of Ethics describes the penalties for plagiarism. Receiving a failing grade on the assignment is among the mildest outcomes. It can also result in failing the course, academic integrity flags going on a student’s record, or even expulsion from the college.

How you can avoid a charge of plagiarism

Before it lists the consequences, the Student Academic Code of Ethics models ethical student behavior. It shows appreciation for the student who does quality work on their own, while being upfront about how they employed other sources to support their project.

Giving credit to your sources is known as citation.

The citation styles that are used most often at the College are MLA and APA style.

When you find a useful source, start by looking for the full citation, and add it to your lists of Works Cited (MLA) or References (APA).

In-text citation

Then, when you are ready to incorporate ideas from a source into the body of your project, you can employ an in-text citation.

An in-text citation is a shortened form of the full citation that lets your audience know which of your sources you are using in that moment.

Signal phrase

Phrases like “According to [author]…” or “[author] said…” are some of the signal phrases that writers use to share information from their sources.

Direct Quote

If you are using the author's exact words, you need to use quotation marks along with your in-text citation.

For a large amount of text (four lines or more when typed out) you can use a block quote.

Paraphrasing

If you can rephrase it in your own words and still get the point across, just the in-text citation will do.

To meaningfully rephrase another idea and still give credit is an important communication skill known as paraphrasing. If done well, it demonstrates that you understand the topic, and are not simply “parroting” the thoughts of others.

Because ultimately, that’s what avoiding plagiarism is all about. While we all learn from others, what people most want to see in anything that you create is your authentic self.

Here are three examples of plagiarism taken straight from the news, uncovered in three very different sectors ...

History professor uses text from other history books word for word without citing

New York Times article: Two Accuse Stephen Ambrose, Popular Historian, of Plagiarism.

(Image: VCU CNS. “19_amendment.” 12 Feb. 2015. from Flickr )

Engineering professor and Ph.D. candidate submit journal article that was heavily plagiarized

Top Canadian scientist and award-winning student caught in 'blatant plagiarism' of text . Article from The National Post , a national Canadian newspaper.

(Image: By © Raimond Spekking / CC BY-SA 4.0 (via Wikimedia Commons), CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52852112 )

Neuroscience journalist self-plagiarizes in multiple newspaper articles

Daily Beast article: Jonah Lehrer’s ‘Self-Plagiarism’ Scandal Rocks The New Yorker: The acclaimed pop-neuroscience writer was caught recycling his own material. Will he suffer consequences?

(Image Photo by  Waldemar Brandt  on  Unsplash )

All three of these plagiarism cases could have been avoided if the authors correctly cited their sources. You can avoid plagiarism in your own work by :

Understanding when to cite. Understanding how to properly paraphrase and when to directly quote your sources. Documenting your citation information DURING the research process. Using a consistent citation style.

(Image: Duffy, Brooke. “Don’t be that guy: Don't Plagiarize meme.”  Fairfield University Archives , 12 Aug. 2015.)

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• URL: https://library.mc3.edu/plagiarism

Holman Library

• Library Instruction

Academic Honesty & Plagiarism

What is plagiarism.

• Academic Honesty/ Plagiarism Guide
• Unintentional Plagiarism
• Consequences of Plagiarising or Cheating
• Create Citations
• Synthesize Your Sources with Good Paraphases & Quotes
• Develop Good Individual and Group Work Habits
• The Case of AI / Artificial Intelligence
• OTHER PLAGIARISM TUTORIALS & QUIZZES
• Find Help @ GRC

Definitions

• Plagiarism Defined
• Academic Honesty Defined
• How to Avoid Plagiarism

Plagiarism is defined as using others’ original ideas in one’s written or spoken work without giving proper credit.

Ideas  include but are not limited to:

Plagiarism can occur in two ways: intentional and unintentional.

A student may intentionally plagiarize in many ways, such as: 

• Turning in someone else’s work as your own, including another student's work or work produced by an AI such as ChatGPT
• Copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
• Failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
• Giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
• Changing words but copying the meaning and sentence structure of a source without giving credit
• Copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether giving credit or not
• "Repurposing" one's own work or submitting the same work for two different classes without the permission of the instructors.

A student may unintentionally plagiarize when:

• Trying in good faith to document your academic work, but failing to do so accurately and/or thoroughly
• Plagiarism and documentation have not been addressed in a student's academic coursework and the student is unprepared for college academic writing or speaking.

Outside Websites

Uploading to and/or accessing course materials from external websites such as, but not limited to, Chegg or Course Hero is considered academic dishonesty and plagiarism.

Academic honesty

In academically honest writing or speaking, you must document sources of information whenever:

• another person's exact words are quoted.
• another person's idea, opinion, or theory is used through paraphrase.
• facts, statistics, or other illustrative materials are borrowed.

In order to complete academically honest work, you need to: 

• acknowledge all sources according to the method of citation preferred by the instructor.
• write as much as possible from your own understanding of the materials and in your own voice.

In order to produce academically honest work, you will be able to:

• ask an authority on the subject of the work - such as the instructor who assigned the work.
• seek help from academic student services such as the library, writing center, math learning center, and/or tutoring center.

Click on these pages to explore how to avoid plagiarism:

• Synthesize Your Sources with Good Paraphrases & Quotes

Books in Holman Library

• Consequences of Plagiarism
• Types of Plagiarism
• Verbatim Plagiarism
• Patchwork Plagiarism
• Paraphrasing Plagiarism
• Global Plagiarism
• Self Plagiarism

Why Cite Sources?

Avoid Plagiarizing: You must cite any direct quotation, summary, or paraphrase of any idea or fact from your research. Citing sources is giving credit to the original author and publication where you found the information. Not citing sources is plagiarism and you may be subject to academic discipline.

• Green River College Library: LibGuides - Academic Honesty Tutorial
• Tutorials on plagiarism
• Student Code of Conduct
• Student Code of Conduct-FAQs for Students

Lend Authority to Your Paper: By referencing the work of scholars, professionals, and individuals with lived experiences around a topic, you demonstrate that your own research is based on solid, reliable information and that you are capable of critical thinking by being able to synthesize that research into your own.

Provide a Path: By citing sources, you provide the information that readers of your essay or presentation need in order to locate the same sources that you did.

Acknowledge Other's Work: Part of your research is built upon the research of other people. In the scholarship tradition in the United States, it is considered respectful and fair to give them credit for their hard work (just as you might hope someone would give you credit if they were quoting your own work!)

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Student Manual

Academic honesty & plagiarism.

It is contrary to justice, academic integrity, and to the spirit of intellectual inquiry to submit another’s statements or ideas as one's own work. To do so is plagiarism or cheating, offenses punishable under the University's disciplinary system. Because these offenses undercut the distinctive moral and intellectual character of the University, we take them very seriously.

Proper acknowledgment of another's ideas, whether by direct quotation or paraphrase, is expected. In particular, if any written or electronic source is consulted and material is used from that source, directly or indirectly, the source should be identified by author, title, and page number, or by website and date accessed. Any doubts about what constitutes "use" should be addressed to the instructor.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free plagiarism check.

• Knowledge Base

Academic Integrity vs Academic Dishonesty

Published on 15 July 2022 by Tegan George and Jack Caulfield. Revised on 13 April 2023.

Academic integrity  is the value of being honest, ethical, and thorough in your academic work. It allows readers to trust that you aren’t misrepresenting your findings or taking credit for the work of others.

Academic dishonesty (or academic misconduct) refers to actions that undermine academic integrity. It typically refers to some form of plagiarism , ranging from serious offences like purchasing a pre-written essay to milder ones like accidental citation errors – most of which are easy to detect with a plagiarism checker .

These concepts are also essential in the world of professional academic research and publishing. In this context, accusations of misconduct can have serious legal and reputational consequences.

Table of contents

Types of academic dishonesty, why does academic integrity matter, examples of academic dishonesty, frequently asked questions about plagiarism.

While plagiarism is the main offence you’ll hear about, academic dishonesty comes in many forms that vary extensively in severity, from faking an illness to buying an essay.

Prevent plagiarism, run a free check.

Most students are clear that academic integrity is important, but dishonesty is still common.

There are various reasons you might be tempted to resort to academic dishonesty: pressure to achieve, time management struggles, or difficulty with a course. But academic dishonesty hurts you, your peers, and the learning process. It’s:

• Unfair to the plagiarised author
• Unfair to other students who did not cheat
• Damaging to your own learning
• Harmful if published research contains misleading information
• Dangerous if you don’t properly learn the fundamentals in some contexts (e.g., lab work)

The consequences depend on the severity of the offence and your institution’s policies. They can range from a warning for a first offence to a failing grade in a course to expulsion from your university.

• Faking illness to skip a class
• Asking for a classmate’s notes from a special review session held by your professor that you did not attend
• Crowdsourcing or collaborating with others on a homework assignment
• Citing a source you didn’t actually read in a paper
• Cheating on a test
• Peeking at your notes on a take-home exam that was supposed to be closed-book
• Resubmitting a paper that you had already submitted for a different course (self-plagiarism)
• Forging a doctor’s note to get an extension on an assignment
• Fabricating experimental results or data to prove your hypothesis in a lab environment
• Buying a pre-written essay online or answers to a test
• Falsifying a family emergency to get out of taking a final exam
• Taking a test for a friend

Academic integrity means being honest, ethical, and thorough in your academic work. To maintain academic integrity, you should avoid misleading your readers about any part of your research and refrain from offences like plagiarism and contract cheating, which are examples of academic misconduct.

Academic dishonesty refers to deceitful or misleading behavior in an academic setting. Academic dishonesty can occur intentionally or unintentionally, and it varies in severity.

It can encompass paying for a pre-written essay, cheating on an exam, or committing plagiarism . It can also include helping others cheat, copying a friend’s homework answers, or even pretending to be sick to miss an exam.

Academic dishonesty doesn’t just occur in a classroom setting, but also in research and other academic-adjacent fields.

Consequences of academic dishonesty depend on the severity of the offence and your institution’s policy. They can range from a warning for a first offence to a failing grade in a course to expulsion from your university.

For those in certain fields, such as nursing, engineering, or lab sciences, not learning fundamentals properly can directly impact the health and safety of others. For those working in academia or research, academic dishonesty impacts your professional reputation, leading others to doubt your future work.

Academic dishonesty can be intentional or unintentional, ranging from something as simple as claiming to have read something you didn’t to copying your neighbour’s answers on an exam.

You can commit academic dishonesty with the best of intentions, such as helping a friend cheat on a paper. Severe academic dishonesty can include buying a pre-written essay or the answers to a multiple-choice test, or falsifying a medical emergency to avoid taking a final exam.

The consequences of plagiarism vary depending on the type of plagiarism and the context in which it occurs. For example, submitting a whole paper by someone else will have the most severe consequences, while accidental citation errors are considered less serious.

If you’re a student, then you might fail the course, be suspended or expelled, or be obligated to attend a workshop on plagiarism. It depends on whether it’s your first offence or you’ve done it before.

As an academic or professional, plagiarising seriously damages your reputation. You might also lose your research funding or your job, and you could even face legal consequences for copyright infringement.

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PowerPoint on Plagiarism and Academic Integrity

Academic integrity research paper assignment description, peer reviewing activity of academic integrity paper rough draft, plagiarism and academic integrity.

This module is for lessons on plagiarism and academic integrity. International students learning in the U.S. tend to struggle both with the concept of plagiarism and the proper execution of citations and giving credit to their sources. Therefore, in INTO Mason's graduate transition courses, we spend one or two weeks on the concept of plagiarism and academic integrity with an Academic Integrity Research Paper as the assessment. Created by Steven Harris-Scott, Ph.D., and Amy Lewis, Ed.D., for INTO George Mason University with support from Mason 4-VA. Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Academic Integrity and Plagiarism assignment description

Students will compose a 500-600 word paper on plagiarism and academic integrity as defined in American academic culture using at least THREE scholarly/academic sources . One source should include the course reading provided and that will be discussed in class, BUT at least TWO must be scholarly sources that students find on their own through the library.

The paper should discuss the following:

• How “intellectual property,” “academic integrity/honesty,” and “plagiarism” are defined
• Why academic honesty and integrity are important in American cultures of education: students should include their experiences with concepts of ethics and fairness within the educational context they’ve experienced and compare it to American ideas on those subjects
• The various ways that plagiarism and academic dishonesty occur
• Practical steps to avoid plagiarizing and being academically dishonest in graduate school along with the consequences for plagiarism and academic dishonest

Citations and Reference List:

The use of sources within the essay must be cited using the style format for the student's discipline (MLA, APA IEEE, etc.), or simply default to APA if they don’t know which citation method their discipline uses yet. Whichever style format the students use, the same style should also be used for their reference list/bibliography that must include a minimum of 3 sources (and no more than 5).

Special Note:

When writing, students should adopt a position on ways to avoid plagiarism and academic dishonesty – this will be their overarching “thesis” – that uses research to support their stance. This SHOULD, as a result, yield a practical guide on how to avoid plagiarism and being academically dishonest, and how they will do their best to uphold American expectations for academic integrity while they are pursuing their graduate degrees.

Structure of Essay:

The essay will likely be 4-5 paragraphs long with the first paragraph framing and defining the issue of plagiarism and academic integrity, the second and third paragraphs comparing this American conception of academic honesty to their experiences with the concepts of plagiarism and academic integrity, the fourth paragraph giving some practical feedback on avoiding plagiarism in graduate school, and the fifth providing a concise conclusion to their paper with some attention to ongoing challenges of international students grappling with the concepts of plagiarism and academic integrity.

Formatting Reminders:

Students must follow the formatting requirements as noted in the syllabus: 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins on all sides of the page, and use in-text citations or footnotes with a separate reference page (not included in word count). They must include a word count.

Evaluation: The rubric for this assignment will be provided on Blackboard.

Academic Integrity Research Paper Rubric

This is the rubric used for the first draft of the Academic Integrity Research Paper. The rubric for the revised final version is slightly different with an extra category for revisions made from the first to the final version of the paper.

The following is the rubric used for the first draft of the Academic Integrity Research Paper:

• Formatting and Citations = 5 points
• Structure of Essay = 5 points
• DEFINITION, IMPORTANCE: Draft fully defines academic integrity, plagiarism, etc. and also fully addresses why those terms and principles are important in Western culture and their specific discipline =  20 points
• OVERARCHING THESIS: There is an adopted position on ways to avoid plagiarism and academic dishonesty in graduate school, it is sophisticated yet practical, and it is backed up by sources = 15 points
• PRACTICAL VIEWPOINTS: Paper address the various ways plagiarism and academic dishonesty occur very well =  10 points
• SOURCE #1: There was good engagement with the source that was provided for you that was required for this paper. The engagement had good to great sophistication and analysis =  15 points
• SOURCE #2: There was good engagement with the outside sources that were required for this paper. The engagement was sophisticated and not merely summarizing. The sources are fully credible =  30 points

Peer Reviewing Worksheet for First Draft of Academic Integrity Research Paper

This worksheet is for use during the class period before the first draft of the Academic Integrity Research Paper is due. Ideally, this activity will allow the authors to receive meaningful feedback BEFORE turning in their first draft to be graded (and commented on extensively), while also giving the reviewers an opportunity to participate in a peer reviewing activity. Peer Reviewing is an important feature of INTO Mason's graduate transition courses and a short lesson on it would come a week or two prior to this activity.

Use the attached worksheet to provide a thorough peer review of your classmate's rough draft of their Academic Integrity Paper. The following are the questions for you to consider and address in the peer review:

• Source #1: How was the engagement with the source that was provided? Was the engagement sophisticated? Explain how with some examples.
• Source #2 and 3: How was the engagement with the outside sources that were required? Was the engagement sophisticated? Explain how with some examples. Also, do the sources seem reliable? Can you tell through the author’s discussion of them?
• Definition, importance: Does the draft fully define plagiarism, academic integrity, etc.? Also, does it fully address why those terms and principles are important in American culture and in their specific discipline?
• Practical viewpoints: Does the draft address the various ways plagiarism occurs in graduate school?
• Overarching Thesis: Is there an adopted position on plagiarism and academic integrity? Is it sophisticated? Does it provide sophisticated and actionable yet practical steps to avoid plagiarism in graduate school?
• If you'd like to say something about the structure of the draft or the writing, do so in general terms at the end.

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Combating Academic Dishonesty, Part 6: ChatGPT, AI, and Academic Integrity

by Thomas Keith | Jan 23, 2023 | Instructional design , Services

Author’s Note: This is the latest installment in an ongoing series of articles about issues pertaining to academic integrity in higher education. For earlier installments, please see: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

ATS instructional designers Mohammad Ahmed and Michael Hernandez contributed content to this article.

Introduction

The state of the tool, issues for academic integrity, technological prevention, non-technological prevention, creative adaptation, further resources.

There are few current issues in education that have provoked more interest – or sounded more alarms – than artificial intelligence (AI) technology. While the issue has simmered for some time, it burst into the forefront of debate following OpenAI’s public release of ChatGPT . When given a prompt – e.g. “What were the causes of World War I?” or “How does the Krebs cycle work?” – ChatGPT (the acronym stands for “Generative Pretrained Transformer”) can generate text that reads, at least on superficial examination, like that written by a human – the basis of the famed Turing Test for machine intelligence.

Once the tool’s capabilities became known, it did not take long for fears to be voiced that students would turn to ChatGPT to write their assignments for them. Eye-grabbing headlines began to appear, not only in sensationalist newspapers like the New York Post ( which dubbed the tool “CheatGPT” ) but in more sober publications like the Atlantic , where an opinion piece bluntly claimed that “the college essay is dead”. Advocates for the worst-case scenario see a future in which human-generated and computer-generated text are indistinguishable, essay assignments are meaningless, and the very skill of academic writing is lost.

One need not accept this doomsday proposition to recognize that ChatGPT raises legitimate concerns for academic integrity. But if we are to address such concerns, we must first answer several key questions: what is ChatGPT, exactly? What are its affordances and limitations? And, assuming that ChatGPT and tools like it are here to stay (as seems overwhelmingly likely), how should we rethink pedagogy to address this new reality?

At this time, ChatGPT is essentially an information aggregator. It trawls vast quantities of human-produced texts and extracts data, which it then synthesizes into a response to a given prompt. As noted above, its responses on many topics are at least coherent enough that they may be superficially indistinguishable from student writing.

As with all AI tools, though, ChatGPT’s capacity to give responses depends upon what, and how much, it is “fed”. Its lack of data on current events, for example, limits its capacity to respond to prompts such as “How is the war in Ukraine progressing today?” There are also guardrails in place to prevent the tool’s being used for nefarious purposes (though cybercriminals are already seeking to circumvent these ).

There are other significant limitations to the tool as well. It cannot cite sources correctly – any request for a bibliography produces false and/or irrelevant citations. Nor is it error-free: users have run across blatant, even comical, mistakes when ChatGPT is asked a question as straightforward as “How do you work?” Like all AI, it is subject to the biases of those who supply its data . And, most fundamentally, it is not true artificial intelligence. There are no indications that ChatGPT understands the questions it is being asked or what it is producing in answer; simply put, it is not sapient. This is worth keeping in mind as the debate rages over whether such tools are capable of supplanting human creativity.

It is, without question, too early in the game to expound upon all the possible difficulties ChatGPT and similar generative AI tools could pose for academic integrity. Already, however, ChatGPT-generated text has proved itself capable of evading plagiarism checkers such as Turnitin. Plagiarism detection software relies on comparing student work to a database of pre-existing work and identifying identical phrases, sentences, etc. to produce an “originality score”. Because the text generated by ChatGPT is (in some sense, anyway) “original,” it renders this technique useless.

ChatGPT also ties into the broader issue of contract cheating – hiring a third party to do work, such as writing an essay or taking an exam, on a student’s behalf. Contract cheating is already a severe problem worldwide, and with the widespread availability of AI writing tools, students can now generate “original” written work for free, without the need to involve a human agent who might betray the student’s confidence.

How Do We Deal with the Problem?

As the New York Times has noted , many faculty and instructors already feel the need to adjust their pedagogy to account for the existence of ChatGPT. Their strategies, actual and proposed, for coping with the tool can be divided into three categories: technological prevention; non-technological prevention; and creative adaptation. We shall consider each of these in turn below.

It will come as no surprise that technological counters to ChatGPT are already in play. A 22-year-old computer science student at Princeton named Edward Tian has introduced GPTZero , which claims to distinguish human- and computer-generated text with a high degree of accuracy. Meanwhile, other plagiarism tools, such as Turnitin, offer their own AI-detection tools and are rapidly working to detect the newest generation of generative AI text. And finally, the makers of ChatGPT are themselves exploring “watermarking” technology to indicate when a document has been generated by the software.

Some experts foresee an “arms race” between AI writing tools and AI detection tools. If this scenario comes to pass, faculty and instructors will be hard-pressed to keep up with the bleeding-edge software needed to counter the newest writing tools. But more fundamentally, we might ask: is technology always the best solution to the problems it creates? Or are there other, perhaps less involved, means of addressing the questions raised by AI?

At the other end of the spectrum, some faculty and instructors have sought to neutralize ChatGPT entirely. This may entail banning ChatGPT specifically; banning all computers in the classroom; supervising student essay-writing, whether in class or via monitoring software such as Proctorio; or even requiring writing assignments to be handwritten.

The concern that underlies such measures is understandable, and they can be effective in the short-term, but they come at a cost: aside from the anxiety that can be provoked by being under surveillance, accessibility issues that may be raised by requiring handwritten work, and the legal/ethical issues raised by video proctoring, students miss the opportunity to learn about the tool and its implications. As we confront the likelihood of a future with ubiquitous AI technology, those students who have never experienced tools like ChatGPT and who know nothing about their uses may well find themselves at a professional disadvantage.

At this point in time, it seems most productive to take a third path – one that balances the need to safeguard academic integrity with the reality that ChatGPT and its like are here to stay. Here are some suggestions for methods to integrate AI tools like ChatGPT into your pedagogy in a productive, rather than destructive, fashion.

• Clarify expectations at the outset. As early in your course as possible – ideally within the syllabus itself – you should specify whether, and under what circumstances, the use of AI tools is permissible. It may help to think of ChatGPT as similar to peer assistance, group work, or outside tutoring: in all these cases, your students should understand where the boundaries lie, when help is permissible, and when they must rely on their own resources. You might also discuss with your students how they feel about AI and its ability (or lack thereof) to convey their ideas. Emergent research suggests that at least some students feel dissatisfied with the results when they entrust expression of their ideas to AI.
• Craft writing prompts that require creative thought. A tool like ChatGPT can easily respond to a simple prompt such as “What are the causes of inflation?”, but it is likely to have trouble with a prompt such as “Compare and contrast inflation in the present-day American economy with that in the late 1970s”. The more in-depth and thought out the prompt, the more it will demand critical reasoning – not simply regurgitation – to answer.
• Run your prompts through ChatGPT. Related to the point above, actually using ChatGPT on a draft of your writing prompt can be an illuminating exercise. Successive iterations may help you to clarify your thinking and add nuances to your prompt that were not present in the initial draft.
• Scaffold your writing assignments. This is a time-honored technique for combating plagiarism of any kind in academic writing. It will be much harder for a student to submit a final draft generated by AI and get away with it if you have observed that student’s thinking and writing process throughout the course.
• Promote library resources. As mentioned previously, ChatGPT is not presently able to generate an accurate bibliography, nor does it understand the concept of citation. This shortcoming can be a good jumping-off point for you to explain to your students how to cite properly, why citation is important, and how they can use available resources to do their own research.
• Model productive use of AI tools. For all its hazards, ChatGPT also offers promising possibilities. A “dialogue” between the user and the tool can help the user to probe deeper into the subject matter, become familiar with mainstream scholarship on the topic, and push beyond “easy answers” toward original work. To promote such dialogue, you might, for example, assign your students to come up with their own prompts, post them to ChatGPT, and then comment on the answers, finding the strengths and weaknesses of the “argument” that the tool generates.

In a field evolving by the day, no article, this one included, can hope to offer definite answers. What we have presented here are points we hope will contextualize the debate and provide a framework for further discussion. In the end, what AI tools will mean for higher education – and for society as a whole – remains to be seen.

To learn more about AI in the classroom, we recommend the excellent page on AI Guidance from Yale’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. Turnitin also offers a concise but helpful Guide for approaching AI-generated text in your classroom .

If you have further questions, Academic Technology Solutions is here to help. You can schedule a consultation with us or drop by our office hours (virtual and in-person, no appointment needed). We also offer a range of workshops on topics in teaching with technology.

(Cover Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash )

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Plagiarism and Academic Integrity Essay

Peer pressure, time management, pressure to succeed, how to overcome plagiarism.

Plagiarism is referred to as literary theft and academic dishonesty, which usually occurs when someone copies the work, ideas and opinions of another author and expresses them as though they are his own without giving credit to the originator. It is very common among higher learning academicians especially when doing write ups for their projects, term papers or thesis.

Plagiarism is a very serious offence and it can attract penalties since copyright takes authors words as his own property and the author has rights to sue in the court of law in case of plagiarism. Plagiarizing not only involves written materials but also piracy in music and other properties.

On the other hand academic integrity refer to a situation whereby students in higher learning institution hold highly on the moral values academics and do their work honestly without cheating (Drinan and Gallant, 2010). It encourages acts of independent learning and critical thinking (White, Owens, and Nguyen 2007).

To maintain academic integrity, academicians should avoid acts of dishonesty, cheating, plagiarism among others. Institutions of higher learning should encourage academic integrity since it really helps students to develop academically and it makes it easy for them to face all kinds of challenges in their area of study.

Academicians give several reasons for plagiarizing some of which include: to help a friend, time pressure, extenuating circumstances, peer pressure, to increase the mark, monetary reward, fear of failure, everybody does it, laziness, lack of research skills, institution admission criteria, poor academic skills, student understanding of plagiarism, external pressure to succeed, careless tutors and invigilators, among others (Devlin and Gray, 2007).

Other reasons may be the advanced technology where by information is readily available online, financial problems where the student cannot afford resource materials, and low chance of being caught. Let us look at some of these reasons in details.

The following essay will show clearly what academic integrity entails, the reason behind plagiarism and how academicians may overcome it to maintain academic integrity.

Peer pressure is a very common scenario in many learning institutions and many students are not able to curb the challenge effectively (Devlin and Gray, 2007). International students are likely to fall to peer-pressure than local ones since they may be seeking comfort and friendship in a place far away from home where they are not familiar with most places and lifestyle. Peer pressure maybe as a result of several factors.

For example, a student may be working very hard to do an assignment honestly but on realizing that most of her classmates are plagiarizing, he/she may prone to do it too. In other instances, the local students in to adventure and having fun may easily influence international students and since they are new to the environment, they may have fun at the expense of the assignment leading to plagiarizing (Vermaat, 2008, Peer, 2009).

International students in higher learning institutions are usually involved in many activities such as jobs, family responsibilities and may be having many units to cover. This is because most of them are usually far away from their families thus they have to cater for their basic needs as they learn.

For instance, most of the international students in the institutions of higher learning do their studies part time after their usual economic businesses. Others are obsessed with having fun leaving very little time for their academic activities while some are generally lazy (Devlin and Gray, 2007).

Due to their big workload, they ought to have a very clear schedule for their activities. The ability of a student to manage his/her time well in college is a key to his/her success. Most of the research papers in higher learning institutions are meant to gauge the student qualification for the area he/she may be covering thus requires ample time.

Plagiarism in this case may be accelerated by procrastination whereby the student keeps on pushing the time to work on his paper until he/she is caught up with the deadline (UNSW, 2010). When students are caught up with the deadline, they are prone to panic and are therefore not able to concentrate or do enough research for their paper. They may end up getting involved in plagiarism to save the situation.

Most international students find it hard to adopt the new curriculum and may not be keen on giving enough time to their research paper because of the advanced technology. They know that they can still get the information from the internet or other books thus being reluctant.

They may also be going through financial strain as they adapt to the new lifestyle or because their guardians are far away thus looking for means to support themselves as they do their studies. This may lead them to poor time management since the job may be draining most of their time leaving them with very little time for their research paper.

Whenever a student joins any institution of higher learning, failing is never an option and the mission right from day one is to get the best grades possible. The pressure may even be more for international students since it takes some so much sacrifice and strain to seek better education at international institutions.

Pressure to succeed and fear of failure is perceived form all direction. For instance, the parents will always be proud of their child if he/she succeeds, the college always sets pass mark giving a student pressure to pass, whoever is learning also gets satisfaction and fulfillment after succeeding, the job market first absorbs the successful students, and in essence pressure to succeed comes from all direction (Sutherland-Smith, 2008)

The education system is so materialistic in a manner that there is always a reward for the successful student and therefore the student will take every action that will help him/her succeed. In this case, whenever a student is given any form of assignment, chances of plagiarism are so high since he/she to present the best work possible.

Through plagiarism, a student is assured of a better grade without putting so much effort or thinking too hard. Some students may be promised monetary gains in case of success while others may be lazy and want to get away with a good grade without sacrificing a lot. Other students may be taking courses they have a negative attitude towards, of which they have to pass thus making them prone to plagiarism (Devlin and Gray, 2007).

This mostly happens to international students when they realize hat most of their areas of study are different from what they were used to at home. This is probably because they do not understand the concept behind their area of study or else, there are just interested in passing to leave the area and do something of their interest. This comes about when students make uninformed decisions when choosing their area of study or guardians force them in to a certain profession.

Institutions of higher learning can only curb the problem of plagiarism by fostering academic integrity, which is composed of the following principles (Drinan and Gallant, 2010): Honesty- The students and tutors should have a driving force to be honest in learning, research and in exams.

Honesty gives a student satisfaction and fulfillment on the grades achieved, enabling him/her to identify and work on his/her weak areas. For international students who may be facing challenges adapting to the new system, it is advisable to develop interest to learn and create more time in order to understand the concept.

Institutions of higher learning and their students should create an atmosphere of trust where by none of them is afraid that the other may be dishonest in one way or the other. This will minimize cases of peer pressure whereby some honest student are forced to copy since everyone in class is doing it. This way, they are able to exchange ideas freely and they can help each other build well on their research and writing talents.

Tutors should always develop an attitude of fairness to their student’s right from the beginning whether they are local or international. They should be keen to encourage the honest students by rewarding their hard work well and putting strict measures to those caught with cases of dishonesty.

Many institutions have come up with means of capturing cases of academic dishonesty such as CCTV in exam rooms, software to detect digital plagiarism and this has encouraged student to work on their own thus getting fair rewards. Tutors should also be fair when marking papers in order to raise the morale of their students and should create a conducive environment for the international students to learn (Keuskamp and Sliuzas, 2007)

Academicians should hold the value of education dearly and with a lot of respect. Every credit in this field should be worked for and held with much integrity since it should be an evidence of the efforts the bearer has put towards its achievement. In this case students should manage their time carefully and this will enable them manage the pressure to pass without straining. It is therefore important to hold on to academic integrity and avoid cases of academic dishonesty.

Responsibility

Institutions of higher learning are meant to nature a spirit of responsibility not only in college but also in their day-to-day life. This should begin right from college where students should be responsible of their research papers by working hard without depending on other author’s materials. They should be taught the importance of time management and independence Local and international students should know the institutions mission right from the beginning in to work towards it.

Apart from the above principles of academic integrity, researchers should ensure that any information retrieved from another persons work is properly cited and references given. This can only be possible if the institution can facilitate on writing skills from the beginning of course work because many students get hardships when doing their write-ups due to lack of proper prior information.

Another way of overcoming plagiarism is through extensive discussions about it between the staff and the students in order to bring the issue to the light. This is because plagiarism has been hidden for many days through assumption that it is not a very serious issue. This leads many students to taking the issue lightly since they do not know much about plagiarism.

This is what leads to unintentional plagiarism since the student may think it is okay since no one talks about it. The staff should hole sessions with the students on time management and they way to live independently without much influence from the peers.

Academic integrity go hand in hand with plagiarism since for the former to operate, the latter should be totally avoided. When academic integrity is not upheld, it undermines the core values through which knowledge is obtained thus damaging the reputation of the larger academic community.

I would recommend that writing skills to be included in every curriculum as a common unit to give learners ample knowledge on how to learn independently and involve critical thinking whenever they are carrying out their assignments. It should be clear that plagiarism is a very serious offence, which should be discouraged in every institution. This is because most tutors and students have had a mentality that plagiarism is just one simple way of accomplishing their course of duty.

Barrier, J. & Presti, D. (2000). Digital plagiarisms . Web.

Devlin, M. & Gray, K. (2007). A qualitative study of the Reasons Australian university students plagiarize. Centre for the Study of Higher Education, The University of Melbourne. Web.

Drinan, P. & Gallant, T. (2010), Student Conduct Practice . Virginia : Stylus Publishing. Web.

Keuskamp, D. & Sliuzas, R. (2007). Plagiarism prevention or detection? The contribution of text-matching software to education about academic integrity. Journal of Academic Language & Learning, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 91-A99. Web.

Peer pressure and plagiarism. (2009). Peer pressure and plagiarism . Web.

Sutherland-Smith, W. (2008). Plagiarism, the Internet, and Students learning . NY, Routledge. Web.

The University of New South Wales. (2010). How Does Plagiarism Happen? Web.

Vermaat, S. (2008). Discovering Computers 2009: Introductory . Cengage Learning. Web.

White, F., Owens, C. & Nguyen, M. (2007). Using a constructive feedback approach to effectively reduce student plagiarism among first-year psychology students . Web.

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IvyPanda . "Plagiarism and Academic Integrity." March 4, 2024. https://ivypanda.com/essays/plagiarism-3/.

• Plagiarism: For and Against
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• Office of the Provost
• Student Policies and Resources

Academic Honesty Policy

Contact Information

For questions, please contact Heidi Kennedy, Assistant Dean, Undergraduate Academic Affairs, at 713-743-9187 or by email at  [email protected].

Instructor Role in the Process

Waiver of departmental hearing, departmental hearing process, college hearing process.

High ethical standards are critical to the integrity of any institution, and bear directly on the ultimate value of conferred degrees. All UH community members are expected to contribute to an atmosphere of the highest possible ethical standards.

Maintaining such an atmosphere requires that any instances of academic dishonesty be recognized and addressed. The UH Academic Honesty Policy is designed to handle those instances with fairness to all parties involved: the students, the instructors, and the University itself.

All students and faculty of the University of Houston are responsible for being familiar with this policy.

The official University of Houston Academic Honesty Policy appears in the Undergraduate and Graduate Catalogs.

• Undergraduate Catalog
• Graduate Catalog

Download a printable version of the Instructor Role in the Academic Honesty Process

Download a printable version of the Waiver of Departmental Hearing Process

Download a printable version of the Departmental Hearing Process

Download a printable version of the College Hearing Process

WAIVER CHECK

Within five class days of discovering or receiving a report of an alleged academic honesty violation, the instructor notifies the Department Hearing Officer in writing of the case. The Department Hearing Officer consults with the Provost Office representative to verify if students are eligible for waiver of department hearing as determined by case history (no prior academic honesty waiver/violation).

  Click here to submit a request for a waiver check  to verify student eligibility to waive department hearing.

You may need to sign-in under your UH Cougarnet access. You will be requested to provide information including student name, student ID # , and related course information. For circumstances or questions that exceed the waiver check form, contact Heidi Kennedy,  [email protected]  , 713-743-9187.

STUDENT REQUEST to REMOVE NAME from Academic Honesty Case List If you are a student who has graduated and wish to request that your name be removed from the academic honesty case list,  submit a request HERE  .

Eligible students have graduated from UH and their academic honesty case was resolved by signing a waiver of department hearing. If a student's academic honesty case resulted in a violation decided by department or college hearing, the record is permanent and the name may not be removed from the academic honesty case list.

Frequently Asked Questions on the Academic Honesty Policy

See the Academic Honesty Policy FAQs for  students  and for  faculty  in this website.

Please also note that, in addition to the fundamental UH Academic Honesty Policy, the professional schools such as the Law Center, the College of Optometry, the College of Pharmacy, and The Graduate College of Social Work may each have their own approved academic honesty policies. For further information, please contact the individual college.

Additional Resources for Academic Integrity

• Bauer College of Business Academic Integrity
• Cullen College of Engineering
• Graduate College Social Work
• UH Turnitin
• Respondus lockdown browser
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Citing Sources
• Incorporating Sources