Student Academic Dishonesty

Earth Science Department
Emporia State University

Introduction

The earth science department follows the Emporia State University Academic Dishonesty Policy, which states in part:

Academic dishonesty, a basis for disciplinary action, includes but is not limited to activities such as cheating and plagiarism (presenting as one's own the intellectual or creative accomplishments of another without giving credit to the source or sources). The faculty member in whose course or under whose tutelage an act of academic dishonesty occurs has the option of failing the student for the academic hours in question. See complete policy.

Most students understand the concept of cheating, but many have a fuzzy idea about the meaning of plagiarism. According to Webster's New World Collegiate Dictionary (4th edition), the verb to plagiarize is defined as "to take (ideas, writing, etc.) from (another) and pass them off as one's own." Plagiary and plagiarism are nouns referring to the act of plagiarizing. In simple terms, plagiarism is intellectual theft.

The concept of plagiarism applies to all kinds of documents--books, newspapers, magazines, journals, maps, technical diagrams, artistic illustrations, computer programs, voice/sounds, music, photographs, videos, etc. The documents may be stored in any type of medium--paper, film, magnetic tape/disk, optical disk, solid-state card or stick, or other storage media. The format of documents varies from simple handwritten text to encrypted digital files. Analog or digital signals transmitted via cable or radio waves are also included. In other words, all kinds of documents are relevant.

Internet

In the context of plagiarism, the Web and other Internet resources must be treated just like any other source of information. Any material used directly must be identified clearly as a quotation or copy of work by the original author. Students should follow standard scientific style for citations--see reference style. This includes listing URLs for any and all materials obtained from Web sources.

In the pre-Internet era, the concept of plagiarism was relatively straightforward. Plagiarism was any type of text, imagery or other material copied from another source and presented as the student's own work. However, many people have the belief that materials obtained via Internet (WWW, FTP, etc.) are "free" and can be downloaded and used in any way without restrictions. This is not true. All materials provided via Internet--no matter what kinds of documents--are protected by copyright or trademark of the publisher, no matter who the individual or organization may be. See copyright.

Students are encouraged to write in their own words, create their own illustrations and maps, take their own photographs, produce their own videos or music, etc. Copy-and-paste writing is not acceptable. Detecting online plagiarism is possible through various services that search web documents for key words and extended text phrases. So-called "content searching" has become relatively sophisticated and allows for rapid checking of suspected plagiarism from web-based sources worldwide.

Related sites

Return to earth science homepage.
Last update May 2012. © J.S. Aber.