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Plagiarism and Academic Honesty Lecture

While you have most likely heard the term plagiarism before, I’d like us to review the concept and discuss what constitutes plagiarism and academic dishonesty. You should know that plagiarism is a serious academic offense and all students caught plagiarizing or cheating on any assignments (discussion posts, essays, etc.) in this course will be referred to the Office of Student Conduct. Please make sure you read the following information carefully as you will be held responsible for all the information in this discussion.

In writing classes, plagiarism tends to refer to the use of material written by others but submitted by a student as though it is his or her own work. Under this general definition, the University of Texas at Arlington First Year Writing Program considers the following acts of plagiarism:

1. submission of a complete text not written by the student, which may have been downloaded from the Internet or taken from other sources such as student paper files;

2. liberal cutting and pasting of sources into the student’s text without attribution;

3. liberal cutting and pasting of sources, which may include close paraphrase or adoption of whole sentences, mixed with the student’s own language, with attribution but without the use of quotation marks to indicate language borrowed from other sources;

4. occasional misuse of sources, with or without attribution, for example, occasional sentences that do not “sound” like the student writer’s typical prose that may include citation at the end of the paragraph but no quotation marks indicating a direct quote;

5. work done by the student for another class but passed off as new, original work.

Plagiarism is also failing to correctly indicate places where you are making use of another's work. It is your responsibility to familiarize yourself with the conventions of citation by which you indicate which ideas are not your own and where your reader can find those sources. Read your textbook and handbook for more information on quoting and citing properly to avoid plagiarism. If you still do not understand, ask your instructor. Also, please note that students will not be pardoned from suspected plagiarism and a Student Conduct referral by stating that they didn't know they were plagiarizing or claiming that they turned in the wrong document without proper citations. 

In addition to the above, paying and/or exchanging gifts or services for someone else to complete your assignments or write your essays is also considered academic dishonesty. It is the philosophy of The University of Texas at Arlington that academic dishonesty is a completely unacceptable mode of conduct and will not be tolerated in any form. All persons involved in academic dishonesty will be disciplined in accordance with University regulations and procedures. Discipline may include suspension or expulsion from the University.  As outlined in the Regents' Rules and Regulations, "Scholastic dishonesty includes but is not limited to cheating, plagiarism, collusion, the submission for credit of any work or materials that are attributable in whole or in part to another person, taking an examination for another person, any act designed to give unfair advantage to a student or the attempt to commit such acts" (Series 50101, Section 2.2). 

Please also note the UT Arlington Honor Code.

I pledge, on my honor, to uphold UT Arlington’s tradition of academic integrity, a tradition that values hard work and honest effort in the pursuit of academic excellence. I promise that I will submit only work that I personally create or contribute to group collaborations, and I will appropriately reference any work from other sources. I will follow the highest standards of integrity and uphold the spirit of the Honor Code. 

After reviewing the information above, view the  video tutorial , authored by the UTA library, on how to properly cite sources. 

More on what constitutes plagiarism can be found online at the Purdue OWL website.

· http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/1/

· http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/

· http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/03/

· http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/04/