Academic Integrity
Academic integrity simply means academic honesty; it is a matter of principle to give credit where credit is due. It demonstrates that you respect original thinking and acknowledge others’ work and ideas.Regardless of which educational institution you are attending, plagiarism is stealing and has consequences in the academic world. Algonquin College is no different. The College takes plagiarism very seriously and will not tolerate academic dishonesty on any level. The academic directive, which governs Algonquin’s policies, states the following on plagiarism:
A student who commits plagiarism will be subject to disciplinary action. Disciplinary action will take the form of an academic sanction(s) and will reflect the severity of the offense committed (Algonquin College Directive E43, Plagiarism pdf.)
Academic sanctions can vary from having to complete a course on academic integrity all the way to being suspended from your program or from the College. Any academic sanction that a student receives will remain on his or her file for one year.
Make sure that you keep track of where you found the information. Help is available at each campuses' library desks and at the campus Student Support Labs if you are unsure how to cite a source.
Common Myths About Plagiarism
Here are six common myths about plagiarism that often get students into trouble when writing:
1. Plagiarizing by accident makes it less of an offense.
Plagiarism is stealing, whether it is done intentionally or not.
2. Buying papers or assignments gives you ownership of the work.
Buying an essay does not mean you own it.
3. Using quotes around borrowed text is a proper citation.
If you are quoting someone directly, then you must follow the quotation rule, which means placing quotations around the entire quoted text and including a citation at the end of the sentence in parentheses. Any citation that is used in your work must be correctly formatted in APA or MLA style and then a complete citation of the work is required in your bibliography. If you have paraphrased any ideas in your own words, then you need only a citation at the end of the sentence and not quotation marks.
4. It is acceptable to cut and paste text or images from the Internet.
Information and images from the Internet are not public domain. Therefore copied text or images from websites must also include a citation. All material is copyrighted, whether it says so or not. For more information on copyright, please visit the Library website on copyright.
5. You don’t need a bibliography if you used the Internet.
Actually, you do require a bibliography if you use the Internet or any other source for doing your assignments.
6. My mark won’t be affected if one of my group partners gets caught for plagiarizing. If you are working in a group, all members are responsible for the academic integrity. Therefore, it is essential that everyone in your group knows how to properly cite work.
What Can Faculty Do?
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Clearly state to students what constitutes plagiarism, refer to College Directive E43: Plagiarism
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Rethink standard written assignments and design assignments that make internet plagiarism less likely.
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Make the research process part of the mark. For example: Somefaculty have students hand in a bibliography/outline or an abstract of their findings at an earlier date than the date set for the final paper.
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Show students how to properly cite traditional and electronic materials for their bibliographies. (Paraphrasing as well as quoting)
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Make sure the penalties for plagiarism are clear and what steps will be taken if it occurs in your class.
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Encourage students to print a copy of internet pages used as paper resources for their own reference, as sites can change, appear and disappear with alarming frequency.
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Detection Methods - Google and Other Search Engines
You can type the title or a keyword or a sentence from the suspect paper into a search engine and explore the resulting links.
Example : Type (within quotation marks) - "Caught in the Web. Sticky Problems in Research and Documentation" into the search box of your favorite search engine.
While the method outlined above can be quite successful, there are numerous drawbacks to surfing the net to detect cut and paste plagiarism, as well as using detection services or databases. Simply put, there is no one way to search the entire web. A large portion of the web, some say 75%, is unsearchable via search engines. This unsearchable portion of the internet is known as the "invisible web". The invisible web contains information that lies behind firewalls such as information within scholarly databases.
