Student Responsibility

This is a simple statement of the rules. You really should read on because it gets a little more complex - particularly if you are accused of violating the rules. However, in case you do not go any further, remember this - when in doubt, ask you professor!

Northwestern University suggests "Eight Cardinal Rules of Academic Integrity." They are worth knowing.

1. Know Your Rights. Do not let other students in your class diminish the value of your achievement by taking unfair advantage. Report any academic dishonesty you see or believe has occurred.

2. Acknowledge Your Sources. Whenever you use words or ideas that are not your own when writing a paper, use quotation marks where appropriate and cite your source in a footnote, and back it up at the end with a list of sources cited.

3. Protect Your Work. In examinations, do not allow your neighbors to see what you have written, you are the only one who should receive credit for what you know.

4. Avoid Suspicion. Do not put yourself in a position where you can be suspected of having copied another person's work, or of having used unauthorized notes in an examination. Even the appearance of dishonesty may undermine your instructor's confidence in your work.

5. Do Your Own Work. The purpose of assignments is to develop your skills and measure your progress. Letting someone else do your work defeats the purpose of your education, and may lead to serious charges against you.

6. Never Falsify a Record or permit another person to do so. Academic records are regularly audited, and students whose grades have been altered put their entire transcript at risk.

7. Never Fabricate data, citations, or experimental results. Many professional careers have ended in disgrace, even years after the fabrication first took place.

8. Always Tell the Truth when discussing your work with your instructor. Any attempt to deceive may destroy the relationship between teacher and student.

http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/8cards.html

The "Policy on Academic Integrity for Undergraduate and Graduate Students" gives the following definitions:

1. Cheating: Cheating is the use of impermissible and/or unacknowledged materials, information, or study aids in any academic activity. Using books, notes, calculators, conversations with others, etc. when their use is restricted or forbidden, constitutes cheating. Similarly, students may not request others (including commercial term paper companies) to conduct research or prepare any work for them. Students may not submit identical work, or portions thereof, for credit or honors more than once without prior approval of the instructor to whom the work is being submitted for the second or subsequent time.

2. Fabrication: Fabrication is the falsification or invention of any information or citation in an academic work. "Invented" information may not be used in any laboratory report or other academic work without authorization from the instructor.  It is improper, for example, to analyze one sample in an experiment and "invent" data based on that single experiment for several more required analyses. Students must also acknowledge the actual source from which cited information was obtained.  A student should not, for example, reproduce a quotation from a book review and claim that the quotation was obtained from the book itself.

3. Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the representation of the words or ideas of another as one's own in any academic work. To avoid plagiarism, every direct quotation must be identified by quotation marks, or by appropriate indentation, and must be cited properly according to the accepted format for the particular discipline.  Acknowledgment is also required when material from any source is paraphrased or summarized in whole or in part in one's own words.  To acknowledge a paraphrase properly, one might state: to paraphrase Plato's comment... and conclude with a footnote or appropriate citation to identify the exact reference.  A footnote acknowledging only a directly quoted statement does not suffice to notify the reader of any preceding or succeeding paraphrased material. Information that is common knowledge, such as names of leaders of prominent nations, basic scientific laws, etc, need not be cited; however, the sources of all facts or information obtained in reading or research that are not common knowledge among students in the course must be acknowledged.  In addition to materials specifically cited in the text, other materials that contribute to one's general understanding of the subject may be acknowledged in the bibliography.  Sometimes, plagiarism can be a subtle issue. Students should be encouraged to discuss any questions about what constitutes plagiarism with the faculty member teaching the course.

4. Denying Others Access to Information or Material: It is a violation of academic integrity to deny others access to scholarly resources or to deliberately impede the progress of another student or scholar.  Examples of violations of this type include giving other students false or misleading information; making library material unavailable to others by stealing or defacing books or journals; deliberately misplacing or destroying reserve materials; and altering someone else’s computer files.

5. Facilitating Violations of Academic Integrity: It is a violation of academic integrity for a student to aid others in violating academic integrity.  A student who knowingly or negligently facilitates a violation of academic integrity is as culpable as the student who receives the impermissible aid, even if the former student does not benefit from the violation. 

Most of these definitions are self-explanatory. The one that is not, and is frequently misunderstood is "plagiarism." The University of California, Davis posts an excellent definition along with examples of acceptable and unacceptable quotation and paraphrasing. Connect to their web site for further information.