About Plagiarism

Universities place a high value on original work and thought. Although most university students understand that "copying" is not allowed in school, they must also understand that the requirement for academic honesty goes beyond not peeking at someone else's answers on a quiz.

Plagiarism is a form of copying, in which a person claims to have done written work that was actually done by another person. It is cheating.

Therefore students must not:

	Copy all or part of another person's writing word-for-word into an assignment. This includes both printed and online materials.
	Copy many phrases from a source, stringing them together with a few additional words in the student's manuscript.
	Paraphrase, which means to go through a passage making minor alterations in wording but keeping most of the essential order and meaning intact, while failing to identify its source.
	Use someone else's unusual, original idea without giving the originator credit for it.

To put it another way:

Write your own thoughts in your own words.

Penalties for plagiarism will depend on the severity of the offense. You can not expect to earn grade points for plagiarized portions of any assignment. Repeated instances of plagiarism will be brought to the attention of university authorities.

A simple version of the rules on using quotations:

	Enclose all quoted matter in "quotation" marks. Remember they come in pairs!
	If the quotation fills three or more lines in your manuscript, present it as a block quote --single spaced and double indented. No quotation marks are required here.
	In addition to the above, identify the source, either in the text or in a footnote or endnote. The reader should be able to look up the original passage without difficultly.

"I forgot" will never be accepted as an excuse for failing to follow these rules.

Fill in and submit the form below to indicate that you understand the policy on plagiarism.

"I understand that plagiarism is a form of cheating and will carry serious penalties, including expulsion from the University."

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Course Day Time

Enter the starting time of your class in the Time field.

Some practical advice: When you sit down to write, read your research material and then put it out of sight. As you write, imagine that you are telling what you have learned to another person. If you don't have the model of another writer's work in view, the result is more likely to be phrased in your natural vocabulary and organized according to your own understanding. When you have finished, reread your source materials to check for accuracy of facts. Remember to identify your sources!

Pitfall: To copy / paste from web pages is very dangerous. Copying big chunks of text and then tuning them up with a few word changes and a sentence or two to connect them is plagiarism--even if you cite your source.

Last edited 01/06/2008