Student Rights & Responsibilities

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Academic Dishonesty & Plagiarism

Academic dishonesty may take many forms, including that of deliberate plagiarism. Academically dishonest acts include copying computer programs written by other students, creating fake laboratory data or other records and misrepresenting them as descriptions of actual observations, or any other form of intentional misrepresentation for the purpose of receiving a higher evaluation than is merited or to cause another student to receive a lower evaluation than is merited. Penn College condemns such behavior. Offenders will be subject to disciplinary action according to the College's Code of Conduct.

Intentional plagiarism is academically dishonest and unethical. Even unintentional plagiarism may provoke legal action against you by the author of the work plagiarized. Too often, writers and speakers do not understand the scope of plagiarism.

Academic Dishonesty Defined

Cheating - A student can be accused of academic dishonesty if he/she uses, or attempts to use, unauthorized assistance (e.g., asking someone else for an answer during a test, copying answers from another person's paper during a test, etc.), uses unauthorized study aids in examinations or other academic work (i.e., "cheat sheets" or textbooks/notes when that use has been disallowed by the faculty), or submits the work of another as his/her own.

Plagiarism - A student can be accused of academic dishonesty if he/she uses the ideas, data or language of another without specific or proper acknowledgment.

Fabrication - A student can be accused of academic dishonesty if he/she submits, or attempts to submit material that is contrived or altered (e.g., making up data for an experiment, misrepresenting data, citing nonexistent articles, contriving sources, falsifying design and/or troubleshooting data, or padding estimates with intent to defraud customers, etc.).

Multiple submission - A student can be accused of academic dishonesty if he/she submits, without prior permission, any work previously submitted to fulfill another academic requirement (e.g., the unauthorized submission of a pre-existing paper or project).

Misrepresentation of academic records - A student may be accused of academic dishonesty if he/she misrepresents, tampers with or attempts to tamper with any portion of a student’s transcripts or academic record (e.g., changing one’s grade, altering computer records, falsifying academic information on one’s resume, etc.).

Facilitating Academic Dishonesty - A student may be accused of academic dishonesty if he/she knowingly helps or attempts to help another violate the principles of academic integrity (e.g., working together on a take-home exam without instructor permission, providing another student with a pre-written paper or test, unauthorized collaboration of any kind, including online testing, giving answers to lab projects with the intent to help students take practical exams, etc.).

Unfair Advantage - A student may be accused of academic dishonesty if he/she attempts to gain unauthorized advantage over fellow students (e.g., acquiring unauthorized access to exam materials, preventing or interfering with another student's efforts, lying about a need for an extension for an exam or paper, continuing to write even when time is up during an exam, destroying or keeping library materials for one's own use, holding equipment back so students are slowed or unable to complete labs, etc.).

Violating known safety requirements - A student may be accused of academic dishonesty if he/she acts so as to have unfair advantage during lab assignments and project testing, grading or jeopardizes the health, well-being of the students or others around him so as to gain unfair advantage on lab assignments or graded projects.

Ethical misconduct - A student may be accused of academic dishonesty if he/she violates client confidentiality or interferes with, alters, falsifies or inappropriately accesses or discloses client and/or agency or company records or trade secrets without authorization.

If a student is unsure whether his/her action(s) constitute a violation of the Code of Conduct, then it is that student’s responsibility to consult with the instructor to clarify any ambiguities.

College Definition of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the presenting of another's words, ideas or projects as one's original work. To draw upon another's work; to copy out passages (even as short as a sentence) verbatim or with small changes; to use as original another's ideas, interpretations, striking terms or phrases; to paraphrase; or to summarize without acknowledging the source - these require acknowledgement (i.e., footnotes or other citations giving adequate description of the source of materials and clearly indicating all quotations either by quotation marks or by otherwise setting off the quoted passage).

The most common forms of student plagiarism, whether deliberate or not, are these:

Too much of the wording of a passage is quoted without being placed within quotation marks.
The research or thoughts of another are not credited.
The sources used are merely listed in a bibliography section and not specifically tied to information in the text.

In writing and speaking at levels below the most formal, plagiarism can be avoided by including into the text less-than-specific references to sources. Even such an indefinite reference as "in a magazine article I read last summer" would avoid a charge of plagiarism, although it might not provide convincing support for the point being made.

In very formal presentations, such as research papers and papers read in symposia, of which the sources might be expected to be checked or reviewed by some members of the audience, specific references to sources and a standard style of documentation are expected.

However, not all information from sources external to the writer or speaker need be credited, as in the cases of facts or common knowledge, facts readily attainable from a variety of reference sources, and well-known quotations. For example, a writer need not cite the source of George Washington's birthplace or of the name of the current British Prime Minister, for such facts are easily retrieved, noncontroversial, and do not represent the research efforts of a particular person or body. Similarly, quotations that are expected to be recognized by an audience need not be credited - for example, "All the world's a stage," and "Love your neighbor as yourself." Quotations that are part of the current scene may require no quotation marks at all. For example, an audience during the years of the George Bush presidency is expected to recognize "Read my lips" and the phrase "kinder and gentler" when they are worked into any discourse and to know they are slogans spoken by that president.

The question of how much wording from a source may be used in a paraphrase will bother conscientious students. Certainly words and phrases that are so common and natural to the content that they cannot be avoided in a paraphrase need not be placed between quotation marks. If, for example, in a paper discussing the dangers of jogging, a student were to wish to paraphrase a passage containing the sentence, "President Carter had to drop out of a footrace in Thurmont, Maryland," the student would not be obliged to place within quotation marks the name of the person or the place or the common verbal phrase "drop out." However, if the passage has stated that "the President paled, sagged and sank," the use of any of those striking verbs especially selected by the original writer would require quotation marks. In either case, this reference to a footnote in history should be credited by some means.

Just as some examples presented above fit a narrow definition of plagiarism but are really exceptions to it, so, too, forms of dishonest behavior on the part of writer or speaker exist wholly outside the definition but are similarly examples of deliberate deception. They include the citing of or quoting from nonexistent sources, the knowingly inaccurate citing of sources when research notes have been lost or omitted, the submitting of work from another course as though it were generated in the later course. These, like the offenses of plagiarism, represent varying degrees of culpability and require a flexible application of discipline according to the judgment of the instructor. However, in a case of deliberate plagiarism, the student is subject to the College's disciplinary policy. Due process is granted to the student as outlined below.