Scenarios with Self
On the first day of classes, you are happy to discover the assigned essay is on a topic you wrote a paper on the last term. You print off a new copy and hand it in on the due date with a new cover page. This is okay because it is your own work.
Not okay because this is self-plagiarism. It doesn’t reflect current learning.
You have been struggling to find a counterargument for your paper, so you search online for inspiration and find it. You finish your paper easily and turn it in without mention of that search.
This is academic dishonesty. You are stealing someone else’s ide
Your friend asks to review the paper you wrote last year because she is taking the same course this term. She says she wants it only as a guideline to help her get started. You see her finished paper a few days later and notice she copied large sections from your paper. You are a bit surprised but have nothing to worry about because this is not plagiarism.
Yes, not academic dishonesty. Avoid giving other students copies of your own assignment. You are also responsible for what they do with them
You are frustrated about not getting the results you should during a lab experiment. You notice others at your lab table are finished and cleaning up their materials. You decide to change your lab results to the expected outcome and begin to clean up your lab area. This is OK because you know what the answers are supposed to be.
No, you are providing false information about what actually happened in your lab. This action inhibits your understanding of why you weren’t getting the right results, preventing your learning of important concepts.
You are writing a narrative story for ELA. You remember a story that you've heard in the past and decide to use that story to create your own. You rewrite the story in your own words, so this is NOT plagiarizing
No, you did not cite the original story. If you cite it and explain your story is based on this one, this action is permissible unless it goes against the instructions for the assignment.
Your friend agrees to edit your paper. She re-writes sections of your paper and you think her changes to your paper are excellent. She was able to write what you were unable to clearly explain. You hand in your paper confident of a high grade.
This is academic dishonesty. You are submitting work that someone else did. During peer editing, never change each other’s work, only offer suggestions.
You are to include seven references in your essay assignment. You run out of time and add two articles to your bibliography/works cited that you did not use to write your paper.
This is academic dishonesty. You are lying about sources of information that you did/did not use
You are permitted to leave the exam room to go to the washroom. Your cell phone rings and you answer it. When you go to hand in your completed exam, the invigilator asks you to wait until the remaining students leave to speak to you.
You could be charged with cheating. During an assessment, electronics are all prohibited unless stated otherwise. No one can determine whether or not you are cheating if you use a device.
You give your paper to your friend to read, and she gives you verbal suggestions. You take notes on what she has said and later make changes to your paper.
Not academic dishonesty. As a learning community, we want to support one another in our learning and assignments. As long as you are only discussing and offering suggestions, this action is fine
You find an article online that has outlined all of the same points you intend to use in your paper. You write the paper using those points but do not quote the article, and therefore, do not cite the article.
This is academic dishonesty. Using ideas that you did not come up with requires a citation.
You are placed in groups to work on a large project. The first time your group meets, you discuss the assignment and you each take a piece of the project to complete. After the compiled project is submitted, you are surprised to learn your group is asked to speak to the instructor about potential plagiarism in one of the sections. You cannot be charged with plagiarism because your section is properly referenced.
No, you can. In group work, you are all accountable to one another and communally responsible for the assignment.
Your friend is struggling with their homework, so you allow them to look at yours since you've already completed it. You are not committing academic dishonesty because you did the work yourself.
Not academic dishonesty, but never simply hand over your work to another student. This is not working together
You find an article online that expresses an opinion that you have also expressed in your paper but goes into more depth. You use that information to deepen your own discussion, but do not quote the article. You do, however, cite the article.
This is not academic dishonesty. As long as you do not take specific ideas from the article, you are just doing general research to help you learn about and understand the topic. However, if you use ideas taken from the article, this would require quoting or paraphrasing the article.
You are struggling to understand the assigned reading for ELA and to answer the assigned questions. You discuss the reading with a classmate. You both write answers that are similar in content but in your own words.
Not academic dishonesty, as long as you articulate the ideas in your own words, you can discuss homework with classmates to arrive at similar ideas
You are stumped on an assignment while working on campus. You notice two of your classmates discussing the same assignment behind you. You join them and work through the assignment together while one student types in the information on his computer. You each copy and paste the assignment onto your own disks and print off copies of the assignment to hand into the instructor. Students were given permission to discuss the assignment together.
This is academic dishonesty. How you can avoid it is by including everyone’s names on the assignment since you were allowed to work in groups.