Academic honesty is an essential part of integrity. It should be incorporated into coursework during one’s time at school and at work. But, what exactly is academic honesty? Why is it so important? Academic honesty is when one doesn’t plagiarize and would cite the sources used to create the product. It is important because, without academic honesty, there would be serious consequences. One may be kicked out of a school because of owning work not entirely done by him/her. To prevent offending any academic policy, works have to include a bibliography section where all outside sources are cited.

For the topic of academic honesty, I had to make a presentation with my group about academic honesty and present it to my class. I was paired up with Lee and Jai. My partners and I separated the work so everyone had the same amount of work. Lee was responsible for defining the term academic honesty. Jai was responsible for explaining the importance of academic honesty. I was responsible for analyzing handbooks and giving examples of both academic honesty and dishonesty.

Below is the presentation that my group presented to the class:

When I was elaborating on my observations of the handbooks, I talked about how I found that all of them addressed academic honesty one way or the other. The high school handbook of KAS and MAK included definitions of violations and listed some consequences. An example of the KAS highschool handbook defining a violation is in Section 14. “Plagiarism​ This is defined as the representation of the ideas or work of another person as the student’s own” (34). Asheville High School’s handbook only stated that “Faculty members must be consistent in applying their own policies regarding academic honesty” (17).

For the academically honest example, I talked about how we cited each picture used in our presentation and how the person who owns the screenshot of the bibliography page cited his/her sources. For the academically dishonest example, I said that if one person was writing a lab report and used different websites to help write justifications, but did not cite those sources, the person would be academically dishonest.

While presenting, I tried my best to present with an audible voice. I did not bring a script up with me because I felt that if I brought a script, I would read off the paper. If I read off a piece of paper, the audience would feel that I am not prepared and don’t have a thorough understanding of the topic. I, however, brought up the KAS Highschool Handbook. The handbook was used as a prop to show the audience what parts of the handbook I was talking about. I did glance at the screen a few times, but most of the time, I maintained eye contact with the audience.

My group members also presented loudly. They did not stare at the screen for the whole time either. Their performances were well done, and they demonstrated their knowledge of the topic.

To further enhance my performance, I would add more hand gestures and keep eye contact with the audience even more. These improvements may allow me to connect with the audience more and they may be more interested in the presentation.