English Department Statement on Academic Integrity

 

Academic integrity is critical to the development of new ideas, unique analyses, and original works of art. People labor to create intellectual and artistic works, which are legally deemed intellectual property. To represent someone else’s work as one’s own is wrong on several counts. It steals from the person who originally did the work, it creates a lie about your own part in a project, and it is an offense to other students who complete assignments on their own.

 

Real world consequences: In the world of publishing, plagiarism and other forms of academic integrity have resulted in law suits, monetary fines, and lost jobs. In addition to the usual consequences ranging from failure to academic dismissal, a student with a record of cheating or plagiarism may not be allowed to join honor societies, will not be eligible for scholarships or awards, will not be considered for internships or secondary teaching certification, and will find it difficult to obtain strong recommendations for graduate school or employment.

 

Students should familiarize themselves with Siena College’s Academic Integrity Policy which can be found in Siena Life (pages 72-73). We assume that every student in an English class is a person of moral integrity. However, in case of any confusion, here are outlined of the “most serious breaches of academic integrity” as listed in Siena Life.

 

Cheating:

 

This includes the basics: copying answers, allowing another student to copy answers, using crib notes, whispering or signaling answers, etc. Any student who cheats on a test or quiz will automatically receive a “zero” for that test or quiz and will be reported to College officials.

 

Obtaining test questions or answers without the permission of the instructor.

 

Turning in the same paper for more than one course is also an example of cheating. Reproducing work you have already done for another context is occasionally allowable, but only with the permission of all instructors involved.

 

Consequences of cheating:

 

Professors reserve a right to assign a final grade of “F” to any student caught cheating.

 

 

Plagiarism:

 

The English department follows the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines for documentation. Consult any handbook or talk to your professor if you are unclear about the MLA guidelines. The Hacker Handbook and a Guide to MLA documentation are also available on the Foundations web page, under General Reference.

 

The following are examples of plagiarism:

 

1. Copying part or the whole of another student’s paper.

2. Copying without documentation part or all of a published essay, article, or book. (This includes material published on the internet)

3. Purchasing a paper from a company.

4. Downloading a paper from the Internet. The Internet has a number of sites from which students may download papers. There are also sites to help professors locate the source of such papers. Any student whose paper includes undocumented material located on the internet will suffer the consequences of plagiarism. If you have uploaded a paper of your own to the internet without making it clear on the network page that the work belongs to you, there will be no way of showing that you have not, indeed, plagiarized the material.

5. “Cut and paste” plagiarism: This includes simply rearranging sentences and phrases from an original source, or replacing a few words with synonyms; using direct quotations without appropriate quotation marks and quotations without adequate documentation.

6. Presenting as your own an original idea, even thoroughly paraphrased, without attribution to the author.

 

Consequences of plagiarism:

 

Plagiarism is not a game; it is a serious academic offense.

 

Inadequate or faulty documentation will lower the grade on any paper.

 

Plagiarism will result in a range of penalties from receiving a grade of “zero” on the paper to failure for the course, to academic probation or expulsion from the College.

 

Professors may decide to forward the case to the Judicial Board. All cases of plagiarism will be filed with the Academic Affairs Office.