Academic Honesty

A school can operate successfully and achieve effective academic standards only if it refuses to tolerate any form of academic dishonesty or plagiarism. In recent years, it would appear that such negative practices have increased worldwide, largely in connection with the development of the internet and the concept of coursework in examination courses. As a response, educational institutions and examining boards everywhere are concerned to promote good practice and to sanction those who have recourse to plagiarism more rigorously than in the past. To this end, we seek the active support of the whole community.

In the words of the MLA Handbook (a widely recognized authority on these matters and the basis of research work in the International School of Geneva): “To use another person’s ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source is to plagiarize. Plagiarism, then, constitutes intellectual theft. (…) Forms of plagiarism include the failure to give appropriate acknowledgement when repeating another’s wording…, when paraphrasing another’s argument, or when presenting another’s line of thinking.” The International Baccalaureate Organization stresses the inadmissibility of plagiarism, and specifies that its consequences include the withdrawal of an IB diploma or certificate and debarring the offending candidate from registration in future examination sessions (Academic Honesty: Guidance for Schools, September 2003).

If students are found to have been dishonest in the completion of academic work of whatever nature, the school will regard this as malpractice and appropriate sanctions will be applied, which may include the awarding of zero for the work.

During Years 9 - 11 students are helped to learn all the necessary skills for correct and appropriate research. Instruction is provided in a cross-disciplinary fashion regarding:

1. the MLA Style Sheet (or other rules for acknowledging source material)

2. research writing techniques

3. data gathering techniques

4. the planning, preparation, and execution of research writing assignments.

The academically honest student:

DOES

• document source material in a formal and appropriate manner
• use direct quotation appropriately
• understand the concept of plagiarism
• understand the consequences of cheating regarding both school-based work and external examinations
• acknowledge explicitly and appropriately help provided by another person

DOES NOT

• copy the work of other students
• give another student his/her own work to copy
• use notes during a test unless allowed by the teacher and permitted by the examination rules
• do homework for another student
• present material written largely by another as his/her own
• purchase and submit pieces of writing written by someone else
• write essays for other students
• present artistic or creative work in any medium that has literally been reproduced except in a manner allowed by the teacher or permitted by the examination rules.