Tiger of the Month

Highlights

Bullying Prevention Hotline

Delaware Department of Justice
Bullying Prevention & School Crime
Contact (Ombudsperson)
1-800-220-5414
Anonymous Tip Line

Academic Integrity

Alexis I. duPont High School Academic Integrity Policy It is our mission to provide for the health, safety, welfare, and education of our students. Part of that mission includes issues of ethics and academic integrity. Knowledge of appropriate practices prepares students to be responsible citizens of the learning community and society.

What is academic integrity?

Academic integrity applies high ethical standards to teaching and learning with respect for knowledge, truth, and fairness. Students are responsible for scholastic honesty and for practicing appropriate, safe, and legal use of information.

What is cheating?

AIHS defines cheating as using someone else’s words, work, test answers, or ideas and claiming them as your own.

What is plagiarism?

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary defines plagiarism as “the act of stealing and passing off the ideas or words of another as one’s own . . . without crediting the source.”

What is cheating or plagiarizing and how can I avoid it?

Examples of Cheating	Examples of Plagiarism

Copying homework and submitting it as your own work.	Not properly citing the words, pictures, music, video, or other forms of communication in your research projects.
Looking at another’s test or sharing what is on a test with other students either verbally or electronically.	Copying and pasting from an online source and submitting it as your own work.
Letting your project partner do all the work and just putting your name on the final project.	Paraphrasing source material without proper citations.
Sharing/accessing network files without the owner’s knowledge and using them for class assignments.	Hiring someone to write a paper, buying a paper, or downloading a paper from an online source.
Turning in someone’s old project as your own.	Making up sources or listing sources you did not consult.

How to Avoid Cheating/Plagiarizing

Organize your time and work so you don’t panic in a time crunch that keeps you from making your work your own.	Rework information into your own words and include personal observations. Remember to cite the original source of information.
Keep good records and notes as you compile your research. This will prevent backtracking and wasting time.	Using another’s work is permissible and often essential in research. Proper attribution and citations keep this from being plagiarism.
ALWAYS include a bibliography, a list of sources when you use the works or ideas of others. For help with your citations, ask your teacher or the library media specialist. If you can’t cite it, don’t use it.	Remember that using another’s words, pictures, music, video, web sites may require permission as well as citation. This involves copyright. For help with this, ask your library media specialist.

Choosing When to Give Credit – from Purdue University — “Since teachers and administrators may not distinguish between deliberate and accidental plagiarism, the heart of avoiding plagiarism is to make sure you give credit where it is due. This may be credit for something somebody said, wrote, emailed, drew, or implied.” When in doubt, give credit to your source! Click Here on How to Avoid Plagiarism

Need to Document

No Need to Document

When you are using or referring to somebody else’s words or ideas from a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium
When you use information gained through interviewing another person
When you copy the exact words or a “unique phrase” from somewhere
When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, and pictures
When you use ideas that others have given you in conversations or over e-mail

When you are writing your own experiences, your own observations, your own insights, your own thoughts, your own conclusions about a subject
When you are using “common knowledge” — folklore, common sense observations, shared information within your field of study or cultural group
When you are compiling generally accepted facts
When you are writing up your own experimental results

Academic Integrity Procedure:Teachers at AIHS will discuss the Academic Integrity Policy and consequences/penalties of cheating or plagiarism. This discussion will include the academic and ethical reasons for giving proper attribution to the work of others as well as respect for the intellectual property of others.

Consequences/Penalties for Cheating:

Violation	Procedure	Penalty	Examples

1st Offense	The teacher notes the cheating, discusses it with the student, and contacts the parent.	“ 0 ” credit for assignment, quiz, or test. Alternative assessment with reduced grade at teacher’s discretion. Document offense on Student Behavior Referral. Contact parent.	Copying or intending to copy another’s homework, quiz or test answers, or assignment. Using books or electronic resources in direct violation of teacher’s directions.
2nd Offense	The teacher notes the cheating, discusses it with the student, notifies the Department Chair and his/her administrator. Administrator contacts the parent and arranges a conference.	“0” credit for assignment, quiz, or test. Document offense on Student Behavior Referral. Administrator contacts parent. Conference of involved parties.	Collaborating with others on an assignment in direct violation of teacher’s directive. Sharing/accessing network files without the owner’s knowledge.
Subsequent Offenses	The teacher contacts the administrator.	Administrative discretion .

Consequences/Penalties for Plagiarism:

Violation	Procedure	Penalty	Examples

1st Offense	The teacher notes the plagiarism, discusses it with the student, and contacts the parent.	“ 0 ” credit for assignment. Alternative assessment with reduced grade at teacher’s discretion. Document offense on Student Behavior Referral. Contact parent.	Copying material from a source and not properly citing or failing to use quotation marks. Paraphrasing the source without proper citation.
2nd Offense	The teacher notes the plagiarism, discusses it with the student, notifies the Department Chair and his/her administrator. Administrator contacts the parent and arranges a conference.	“0” credit for assignment, quiz, or test. Document offense on Student Behavior Referral. Administrator contacts parent. Conference of involved parties.	Copying and pasting from an online source and submitting work as your own without proper attribution. Hiring someone to write a paper, buying a paper, or downloading a paper from an online source.
Subsequent Offenses	The teacher contacts the administrator.	Administrative discretion .

Glossary of Terms: from Newton North High School Library, Newton, MA.

Plagiarism	Passing off someone else’s work as if it were your own.
Attribution	Giving the source of your information; giving credit.
Paraphrase	A restatement of a passage giving the meaning in another way.
Citation	A note identifying the source of a quotation, idea, opinion, fact.
Bibliography	A document at the end of a paper/project that lists all of the sources that were consulted. Also referred to as “Works Cited.”
Intellectual Property	A person’s original ideas of work or creation usually protected by copyright law.
Common Knowledge	Ordinary information that most people know or that is not disputed, such as: President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.

Works Cited

“Avoiding Plagiarism.” Online Writing Lab. 2004. Purdue University. 13 June 2005.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html.

Johnson, Doug. Learning Right from Wrong in the Digital Age: An Ethics Guide for

Parents, Teachers, Librarians, and Others Who Care about Computer-Using Young

People. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing, 2003.

Lathrop, Ann and Kathleen Foss. Student Cheating and Plagiarism in the Internet Era: A

Wake-Up Call. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 2000.

Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 2004.

“Plagiarism Policy.” 2005. Newton North High School Library. 7 June 2005.

< http://www.nnhs.net/library/show.php?page=plagiarism_policy.htm>.

Valenza, Joyce. “Anti-Plagiarism Campaign: The Struggle for Academic Integrity.”

Connected Newsletter, Dec 2003/Jan 2004: 4-7.