Academic integrity and your term paper

Please realize all work that you turn in to your professor is work that has YOUR name on it and consequently is assumed to be YOUR work. This applies to 1^st drafts as well as final drafts.

Your paper may include thoughts that are not your own. BUT if it does, you must indicate how your work and the work of others differ. This is the purpose of systems of citations and footnotes.

In the age of Napster, there is the misunderstanding that “borrowing” from others is somehow permitted. Everyone else is doing it. In the case of Napster, the logic is simple: why pay for the property of others when you can take it for free? This is not “borrowing”. The more appropriate designation is “stealing”. There are few courts that will accept that logic and fewer religions. There is no reason to do what everyone else is doing if they are jumping off bridges without bungee cords.

The same reasoning applies in the academic world. You may not borrow another’s words and claim them as your own. Others may be doing it. But if YOU get caught I guarantee that will not be an acceptable excuse.

Some more practical advice:

1) Start a paper early so you don’t get “jammed up” at the last minute. The temptation to cheat becomes greater. Or, in your mind, you may not have plagiarized at all but simply forgotten to include quote marks and footnotes in your rush to get the paper to the professor by the 5PM deadline. To your professor, it will look like plagiarism and that’s what will get you in trouble.

2) Realize that faculty are professional writers and you aren’t. Almost all undergraduates and most graduate students have yet to develop good writing skills. It is easy to tell the difference between the work of an undergraduate and the work of the author of the book or article that is being copied.

3) You’re not copying professional work but the work of other students? If that work is electronic (i.e., available on the internet), your professor can find it quite easily. Indeed the Department of Political Science has a teaching guide for its faculty that identifies almost all of the term paper services currently operating on the web.

4) Overcite rather than undercite.

a) Always use quotes where they are appropriate (when the work is not your own).

b) Make sure that it is clear when you are using the work of others even when you are not directly quoting.

c) Do not overuse quoted material. Almost all paper assignments are designed to have you make decisions about what is important and what is not and, in making those decisions, to indicate to the reader why you make the judgments you do. Quoted material should never stand alone without discussion. The author’s job is to make it clear why the quote is in the paper.

5) Never turn in the same paper for 2 different classes even if the professors of the two classes say you may do so. First, you’re not taking advantage of the learning exercises provided by your professor and not taking advantage of having 2 professionals offer insights into your ideas. Second, it’s rare that two papers require that exactly the same intellectual tasks to be performed. If you try to tailor a single paper to two different sets of standards, chances are you will miss both.

See my web page (“Courses”) for the University definitions of plagiarism, cheating, inappropriate use or possession of materials, a student-faculty contract on academic honesty, and the proposed CU Honor Code that will take effect next fall.