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Plagiarism and Academic Honesty: Academic Honesty

Guide to explain what plagiarism is and the consequences. Includes a tutorial and quiz that can be used for classes.

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

The St. Paul’s Student Handbook states the following under the section entitled, “Honesty, Plagiarism and Cheating” :
The school is very concerned that every student understands the tremendous importance of honesty and integrity in all aspects of living. Dishonesty and cheating in any form, including plagiarism (the representation of another’s work as one’s own) or allowing one’s work to be used, will be considered serious offenses … No academic advantage is worth one’s personal integrity.
The consequences of dishonesty and cheating will be graded according to the seriousness of the offense as describe above in "Respect for Others." Academic penalties for plagiarism will be incurred in addition to disciplinary measures. Repeated violations will be treated more harshly.
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:
i) For the first offense the student will receive a grade of zero and given a Charge slip,
ii) For the second offense, the student will receive a grade of zero, and be moved to the end of the Discipline system. (15)
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.