What is Academic Honesty?
Academic Honesty is a commitment, even in the face of adversity, to five fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility.
What is Academic Honesty?
According to the International Centre for Academic Integrity, academic honesty is “A commitment, even in the face of adversity, to five fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility.” Academic Honesty. (2018). Www6.cityu.edu.hk. Retrieved 20 November 2018, from http://www6.cityu.edu.hk/ah/academic_honesty.htm
Which one of these statements sounds more professional? WELL, a lot of people will choose the first one, since it sounds more likely to be written by the author himself/herself, and also sounds like that the author has the ability to write such detailed definition. WHICH IS NOT THE TRUTH.
According to a study from p.org, ONE OUT OF THREE high school students admitted that they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment. Copying and paste are just a part of most of our digital life, we will never quit using these commands. What’s more important is how we use them, as digital citizens, we have to control what we do online. Don’t let these small things CONTROL OVER YOU and lead you into BIG TROUBLES such as PLAGIARISM. Copy and Paste or even using others’ ideas will lead you into two completely different situations, one kind of situations will lead you to serious consequences of plagiarism, such as getting KICKED OUT from universities, or even being sued for copyright infringement. while the other one will reinforce your knowledge to the topic. ALL DEPENDING ON YOU!
What is plagiarism?
According to Dictionary.com, plagiarism means “A piece of writing or other work reflecting such unauthorized use or imitation.” Based on the definition of plagiarism, it shows that IMITATION also counts as plagiarism, so not only copy and paste will lead you to plagiarism, an unauthorized imitation will also do that, such as stealing ideas without citations.
- CONSEQUENCES: I referred to three different handbooks for their academic honesty guidelines and policies.
Kaohsiung American School: Based on the academic honesty policy from KAS (Kaohsiung American School) handbook on page 33, it says that it will apply one or MORE conseuqnces (as appropriate) on the student depending on the principle. The consequences are:
- Formal Probation
- Conference With Parents
- Zero Credit For a Course
- Incomplete For a Course
- Report to a University
- Withdrawal from KAS
Kaohsiung Morrison Academy: Morrison has a different system then KAS, Morrison will record your behavior as one offense, the consequence will be worsened as the student’s record of plagiarism increases.
- 1st Offense: Teacher discipline, the teacher will determine how to adjust the grade accordingly team leader notified, and a letter sent home
- 2nd Offense: Plus offense is entered on the student’s record, and possible 1-day in-school suspension depending on the degree of severity of the offense
- 3rd Offense: 1 day of in-school or out-of-school suspension, parent conference, ineligible for an academic award that school year
- 4th Offense: More severe administrative discipline with parent conference, possible termination of enrollment
Connecticut Staples Center: Staples Highschool have a similar system then MAK, they count student’s record, and if any subsequent instance happens, the consequences will be worsened. But unlike MAK and KAS, the student will not be withdrawn from the school.
- A grade reduction on the assignment in question
- A grade of zero (0) for the assignment
- the student shall be given a grade of “F” for the quarter of the course
- the National Honor Society advisor shall be notified for possible action.
- dropped from the course and receive an “F” for a final grade.
COMMON CASES OF PLAGIARISM:
Most plagiarized contexts are really obvious and will be revealed immediately because they all share similarities between each other, the first one and the most common one is NO CITATIONS OR DID NOT CITE PROPERLY. It is really important to reference someone else’s work, so as citing it, without proper citations, it will lead to very serious consequences such as getting kicked out or being suspended by universities, it is one of the most commonly seen consequences for plagiarism. The other one will be STEALING IDEAS, even though you did not copy the text, but you used someone else’s IDEAS, you should still cite it, because that is considered as one of the references you used. These cases are really common and are really easy to identify them, but PLAGIARISM ALSO OCCURS WHEN THERE ARE CITATIONS…
Plagiarism? I THOUGHT I CITED:
“HUH? PLAGIARISM? I THOUGHT I CITED ALL THE SOURCES.” This situation might represent you as a student. Plagiarism will be revealed immediately sometimes, but sometimes, it’s not that obvious, Because of the borderline between plagiarism and “using references” is vague. oftentimes, CITATION will prevent you from PLAGIARISM, but for some cases, it will not be such effective. Let’s make an assumption of a student who cites all the sources properly but was still blamed for plagiarism because the student USED TOO MUCH CONTENT from the ORIGINAL source. However, what’s considered TOO MUCH? there’s always a lack of consensus or clear rules on what percentage of “plagiarism” is acceptable.
- WHAT’S ACTUALLY CONSIDERED PLAGIARISM? According to a study to plagiarism, it points out that 15% of the similar context to other sources will be acceptable and it will indicate that plagiarism does not occur. It also states that 25% of the similar context will “probably be a high percentage” according to the document. However, it mentions the word “PROBABLY” which tells that it is not a clear-cut-rule for plagiarism. plagiarism
PREVENTING PLAGIARISM:
Even though there’s a lack of detailed rules for plagiarism, we should still be aware of plagiarism, always make sure to cite all the sources properly and do not copy too much content, normally, the more secure way is to only refer to quotes and very specific data or information, and by limiting yourself to not plagiarize, you can use the TIEA format to write the report or essay, in which T represents topic sentence, I represent introduction, E represent evidence and A represents analysis of the evidence. This format will limit you to only use IMPORTANT pieces of evidence, and for introductions and analysis, you will come up ideas with your own based on the evidence.
References:
the definition of plagiarism. (2018). www.dictionary.com. Retrieved 20 November 2018, from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/plagiarism
Academic Honesty. (2018). Www6.cityu.edu.hk. Retrieved 20 November 2018, from http://www6.cityu.edu.hk/ah/academic_honesty.htm
(2018). Eat.scm.tees.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 November 2018, from https://eat.scm.tees.ac.uk/bb8content/resources/recipes/interpretTurnitin.pdf