Learning Objectives
After completing this module, you will be able to:
Explain what academic integrity is and why it is important
Describe the concept of information having value
Define and recognize plagiarism
Explain the importance of avoiding plagiarism
As a society, we acknowledge that objects hold value—they took time, effort, and often expertise to create. At the same time, we need acknowledge that information also holds value—it took time, effort, and often expertise to create. When we adhere to this belief and give credit to the creators, we are acting with academic integrity.
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“Students are expected to uphold appropriate standards of academic integrity. The college assumes, and indeed views as indispensable to a student’s academic career, the principle that every student is honor-bound not to cheat or act dishonorably in or out of the classroom. Academic dishonesty is a serious offense because it undermines the bonds of trust and honesty among members of the campus community.”
| Original Thinking | Student submits an assignment that is their own work and ideas using the building blocks of cited sources. |
| Student Collusion | Students working together on an assignment that was meant to be an individual assessment. |
| Inadvertent Plagiarism | Forgetting to properly cite or quote a source or unintentional paraphrasing. |
| Paraphrase Plagiarism | Rephrasing a source’s ideas without proper credit given. |
| Word-for-Word Plagiarism | Copying and pasting content without proper credit given. |
| Self-Plagiarism | Reusing one’s previously published or submitted work without giving proper credit. (Using a paper for more than one class.) |
| Mosaic Plagiarism | Weaving phrases and text from several sources into one’s own work. Adjusting sentences without quotation marks or citations. |
| Source-based Plagiarism | Providing inaccurate or incomplete information about sources such that they cannot be found. |
| Manual Text Modification | Changing text (either the word order or using words with similar meaning) with the purpose of misleading plagiarism detection software. |
| Contract Cheating | Involving a third party (for free, for pay, or for goods) to complete an assignment and represent it as one’s own work. |
Based on and adapted from TurnItIn’s Plagiarism Spectrum 2.0. (Expanded from https://www.turnitin.com/static/plagiarism-spectrum/) Accessed 27 July 2022.
Students caught plagiarizing often use several of these forms of plagiarism in their final product. If you are unsure, ask your instructor or a librarian.
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Mullin, Benjamin. "Is It Orginal? An Editor's Guide to Identifying Plagiarism." Poynter, Poynter Institute for Media Studies, 16 Sept. 2014, www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2014/is-it-original-an-editors-guide-to-identifying-plagiarism/. Accessed 27 July 2022.
