| Academic integrity A fundamental value of American education is a belief in the ownership-and therefore the sanctity-of an individual's ideas. Like an item of property, an idea belongs to the person who first expressed it. To use another person's ideas in one's work without acknowledging the source and presenting that person's idea as one's own is considered "stealing" or plagiarizing. The concepts and definitions of academic integrity are culture-specific. Although collaborative work and sharing in the scholarship of others without citation are acceptable and ethical practices in many parts of the world, in the United States such practices are viewed as serious violations of academic integrity and the penalties attached to such activity are severe.
Plagiarism is representing some other person's work as one's own, and is the most serious form of academic fraud. Plagiarism includes:
- Presenting as your own a phrase, sentence, or passage from another writer's work without using quotation marks.
- Using ideas from the Internet and presenting them as your own.
- Using another student's work and placing your name on it.
- Purchasing a term paper or research.
- "Collaborating" between two or more students who then submit the same paper under their individual names.
- Submitting the same paper for two or more courses without the knowledge and expressed permission of all instructors involved.
- Giving permission to another student to use your work for a class.
- Copying another person's paper, math or physics problems, computer programs, lab results, or any other work.
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