P LAGIARISM AND A CADEMIC H ONESTY From Strake Jesuit College Preparatory Community Life

Academic Honesty ● Honor and character can be defined as, “what one does when no one else is watching.” ● A person’s honor is bound up with his or her integrity. ● Integrity is what binds us as a community. It makes us equals before God and others. ● Honor is established by living one’s life in a way befitting the standards of an ethical person. ● It is your own, to build or destroy. ● Honor and integrity are reflected in choices and actions.

Expectations of Students ● Students must refrain from committing acts of academic dishonesty. ● Students’ work should reflect their own ideas, understanding, and words, phrases, and clauses. The school expects students to be honest in their work and to have integrity in citing sources. ● Any outside source used or consulted must be cited. ● They must also alert teachers when they become aware of or suspect instances of academic dishonesty by others.

Types of Academic Dishonesty ● Cheating ● Plagiarism ● Fabrication ● Obtaining an Unfair Advantage ● Aiding and Abetting Academic Dishonesty

Cheating ● using unauthorized notes, study aids, or information on an examination ● altering a graded work after it has been returned, then submitting the work for re- grading ● allowing another person to do one’s work and submitting that work under one’s own name ● submitting identical or similar academic work for credit in more than one course without prior permission from the course instructors ● preparing an assignment to be submitted by someone else, selling any assignment, copying someone else’s assignment ● allowing someone else to copy one’s assignment ● depending significantly on someone else’s ideas in completing an assignment ● allowing another to view answers during a test or evaluation ● unauthorized communications of information during a test or evaluation ● use or possession of unauthorized materials during a test ● providing any substantive information about a test to other students who have not yet taken it ● any behavior that an instructor can reasonably construe as cheating ● failure to follow testing procedures so that the security of the test is compromised.

Plagiarism ● “Plagiarism involves two kinds of wrongs. Using another person’s ideas, information, or expressions without acknowledging that person’s work constitutes intellectual theft. Passing off another person’s ideas, information, or expressions as your own to get a better grade or gain some other advantage constitutes fraud” (MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 7th ed.) ● It is a form of cheating that involves a student’s attempt to gain credit for someone else’s efforts.

Avoiding Plagiarism ● How to Avoid Plagiarism: ● Cite anything and everything. ● When a student is submitting a written paper, that student must clearly document those ideas, interpretations, words, phrases and other expressions that come from an outside source. ● When in doubt, CITE. ● Over-cite, rather than under-cite. ● Forgetting to cite a source does not excuse a student from the charge of plagiarism.

Avoiding Plagiarism ● How to Cite Sources: ● Use the OWL at Purdue University for MLA and citation help. ● This site is the most reliable, up-to-date, and accessible MLA site on the web. ● ● Beware of or similar websites. Although these sites enable you to plug in the elements of the citation and then it computes the citation for you, it will often do so incorrectly. ● Take the extra time to cite your sources yourself. ● Other Sources: the UNC-Chapel Hill Writing Center

Avoiding Plagiarism When to CiteWhen Citing is Optional ● Idea: ● If you have read it, and it has given you an idea, then you cite it. ● Quote: ● If you have read it and you take a phrase, sentence or sentences from it verbatim, cite it. ● Paraphrase: ● If you have read it and put its ideas into your own words, cite it. ● Commonplace Definition: ●If you have read something in a dictionary that indicates a commonplace definition, you do not have to cite it. ●If you use a dictionary’s wording, you must cite it. ● Commonplace Knowledge: ●If the source names a commonplace phrase or a commonplace date, e.g. “the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863,” you do not have to cite it. ● Class Discussion: ●If you got the idea or information from class discussion, you do not have to cite it. ●Class discussion should be a springboard for your ideas, not the sole source. Think for yourself.

Avoiding Plagiarism ● Keep Detailed Records ● If you don’t have a copy of the book, make a copy of every word, paragraph, or phrase that you quote or paraphrase. ● Make a photocopy of the page out of the book, journal or newspaper. If you are using an internet source, bookmark the site AND print a copy. ● Label that photocopy with the MLA citation information of that source. ● Place brackets around the phrase, sentence, or passage that you use and in the margin write the page number of your own essay where you cite it.

Avoiding Plagiarism ● Cite all consulted sources. ● Even if your assignment doesn’t require sources ● Even if you do not draw from or quote their information. ● If you are asked to write an essay that doesn’t have a research requirement, you may still want to do some background reading. ● Cite any word or idea at all that comes from that source. ● Keep a copy (labeled with MLA citation information) of the text you have cited. ● This especially includes internet sites. ● Obvious, Obligatory Note: you should never go on- line for paid or unpaid student papers. ● Intent or Lack of awareness does not excuse plagiarism.

Avoiding Plagiarism ● Turnitin.com ● All major writing assignments will be submitted to turnitin.com ● This service will notice ANY similarity between your work and the work of another student or an internet source. ● The site produces an originality report for the instructor and it shows what percentage of a paper is plagiarized. ● The software will also analyze the results to see what percentage may be plagiarized. ● The software will also produce the source of the plagiarized paper, be it from the internet or another student. ● You are not smarter than turnitin.com

Avoiding Plagiarism ● When contemplating plagiarism, remember: ● Late turn-in penalties compared to plagiarism penalties ● Failing with integrity is respectable; failing while cheating is not.

Fabrication ● Includes but is not limited to: ● falsifying or inventing any information, data or citation ● presenting data that were not gathered in accordance with standard guidelines defining the appropriate methods for collecting or generating data and failing to include an accurate account of the method by which the data were gathered or collected. ● I know the texts we read; I will know if a quote is accurate or not. ● Be precise.

Obtaining an Unfair Advantage ● Includes but is not limited to: ● stealing, reproducing, circulating or otherwise gaining access to examination materials prior to the time authorized by the instructor ● unauthorized collaborating on an academic assignment ● retaining, possessing, using or circulating previously given examination materials without permission ● otherwise undertaking activity with the purpose of creating or obtaining an unfair academic advantage over other students’ academic work ● Collaboration is acceptable in the case of authorized Peer Editing. Do not peer edit unless it is part of the assignment.

Aiding and Abetting Academic Dishonesty ● Includes but is not limited to: ● providing material, information or other assistance to another person with knowledge that such aid could be used in any of the violations stated above ● providing false information in connection with any inquiry regarding academic integrity, or failing to provide information in such an inquiry. ● Unauthorized collaboration is included under Aiding and Abetting.

Academic Dishonesty Procedures ● Determination of Academic Dishonesty: ● Made by the teacher ● Teacher’s detection and decision is final ● Once the decision is made, the remaining steps are set and clear ● Reporting of Academic Dishonesty ● The teacher informs the Dean of Students ● The Dean of Students will notify the student’s parents, counselor, and the Academic Assistant Principal of the infraction ● Consequences of Academic Dishonesty ● Determined by the Dean of Students in accordance with the administration and the teacher.

Academic Dishonesty Consequences First OffenseRepeat Offense(s) ● One or more of the following consequences will result: ● loss of all or partial credit for the assignment in question ● Typical Punishment: Automatic zero on the assignment ● notation of the offense in the student’s permanent record ● one or multiple Penance Halls ● one or multiple Saturday Penance Halls ● mandatory counseling with school counselor ● other disciplinary or academic consequences as appropriate ● Loss of eligibility ● One or more of the following consequences will result: ● an “F” for the student’s semester grade ● disciplinary or academic probation ● loss of senior privileges including conditional exams ● prohibition from graduation exercises ● calling of a Discipline Board to determine suspension or expulsion from the school ● other disciplinary or academic consequences as appropriate ● Loss of eligibility

Recognizing what is at stake: ● Your own integrity. ● Your own learning process. ● Your relationship with your teacher. ● Your relationship with your parents. ● Your relationship with your peers/teammates. ● The reputation of Strake Jesuit. ● The work that all of us have put into making Strake Jesuit an ethical and intellectually elite school.