Academic Integrity and Avoiding Plagiarism

Plagiarism (presenting someone else's words or work as your own) has no place here.

Academic Integrity is fundamental to scholarship and research, and to the ethics of the Social Work profession. Academic Integrity includes giving credit to all earlier scholars whose work we build upon, and whose ideas and words we use. 

Failure to cite the work of others constitutes plagiarism, and the penalties for plagiarism can be severe. Avoid unintentional plagiarism by learning when and how to cite. 

Note: Some professional settings like government or law may require people to reuse exact language, to copy and paste words which have been vetted and approved. Academic work is very different. Here you cannot copy and paste - if you do, it's plagiarism.

How to Avoid Plagiarism

Write using your own words. When you mention or summarize someone else's work, be sure to cite your sources. In Social Work writing, cite with APA Style.

The U-M Library has collected resources for you and created this guide to Academic Integrity in Social Work 

Contact Social Work Librarian Darlene Nichols at dpn@umich.edu 

Harvard University has created an excellent resource on Avoiding Plagiarism.

Please take time to read these guides. If you don't understand something, feel free to ask me about it. 

Academic Integrity and AI Tools

The landscape of AI tools is evolving rapidly, both the tools themselves and guidance for their ethical use.

From the U-M Library on Academic Integrity: Chat GPT and Generative AI

 From U-M GenAI: Guidance for Students

The Cost of Plagiarism: A Real Life Example

While running for reelection in 2014, Senator John Walsh was accused of having committed plagiarism while working toward his 2007 Master's degree at the United States Army War College. View the New York Times analysis of his paper. Notice the number and nature of his failures to cite his sources properly, or at all.

(If the link above does not work, here's an archived version of this New York Times analysis.)

This plagiarism ended Walsh's political career, and the United States Army War College revoked his Master's degree.