Academic Integrity and
Plagiarism
Edward Eckel
Engineering Librarian
Waldo Library
On the Index Cards
Are there times when cheating or
plagiarism is justified?
YES or NO
Why or why not?
This Evening
 What do we mean by academic integrity?
 Why should you care?
 How can you avoid plagiarism?
 Brief discussion (if time)
Fundamental Values of AI
 Respect
 Trust
 Honesty
 Fairness
 Responsibility
Source: Center for Academic Integrity
Clemson Univeristy
Plagiarism
 Pretending that the words you write or the
ideas you express are your original ideas
 Also called academic dishonesty
 Or research misconduct
According to McCabe (1990)
 Undergraduates reported engaging in
academic dishonesty…
 Business 87%
 Engineering 74%
 Science 67%
 Humanities 63%
Well-Publicized Cases in
Engineering
 Russ College of Engineering, Ohio
University (1986-2006)
 55 graduate theses
 1 degree revoked, so far
 Numerous theses will have to be rewritten
 1998 – Engineering professor plagiarized
grant applications to the NSF
 Copied text and a figure without citing sources
Consequences
 Embarrassment and inconvenience
 Failure of course
 Expulsion from school
 Revocation of degree
 Loss of job
 Ruined career
Every school has policies…
 Western Michigan University
 “Student Code of Conduct”
 Page 6: “Academic misconduct – Including
but not limited to the following: Cheating,
fabrication, falsification, forgery, multiple
submission, plagiarism, complicity, or other
forms of academic dishonesty.”
 “Research Misconduct Policy”
 Page 2: “Plagiarism: the appropriation of
another person’s ideas, processes, results, or
words without giving appropriate credit.”
Why Document Sources?
 Make it easier for readers to consult
them
 Give credit to original author
 Avoid accusations of plagiarism
 Strengthen your argument
Quoting versus Paraphrasing
 Quotes are not used much in
technical writing
 You will need to paraphrase or
rewrite things in your own words,
using proper citation.
Professors’ Expectations
 “…internalize and spit back out in
[your] own words, to provide [your]
own ‘take’ on it…a personal reaction,
not just paraphrasing.”
Foster & Gibbons, 2007
Advice from McMaster University
 Try to understand the idea as
completely as you can
 Pretend you are explaining this to
someone who has never read about it
before
 Look at several sources (not just
one) that discuss the idea so you can
see different examples
What counts as
plagiarism?
Is this plagiarism?
“two heavy chains and two light
chains”
Is this plagiarism?
 “The evaluation and everyday work
with VR systems and applications
made it clear that the design space for
Virtual Environments (VEs) is very
manifold and difficult to understand.”
- Szabo 1998
Is this plagiarism?
 “The evaluation and everyday work
with VR systems and applications
made it clear that the design space for
Virtual Environments (VEs) is very
complex and hard to understand.”
Is this plagiarism?
 “The evaluation and daily work with
virtual reality systems and applications
made it clear that the design space for
Virtual Environments (VEs) is very
complex and hard to understand.”
Is this plagiarism?
 Working everyday with virtual reality
systems, one realizes just how complex
a process it is to effectively design a
virtual environment (Szabo 1998).
-Eckel 2007
Questions/Difficulties?
Ask Your Librarian!
 Edward Eckel
 Phone: 387-5140
 Email: edward.eckel@wmich.edu
Bibliography 1
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Allen, Charlotte. "Taste: Their Cheatin' Hearts." Wall Street Journal, May 11,
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Center for Academic Integrity, Rutland Institute for Ethics. "The Fundamental
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for Ethics, Clemson University.
http://www.academicintegrity.org/fundamental_values_project/pdf/FVProject.pd
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Gibbons, Michael T. Engineering by the Numbers American Society for
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Hinman, L. M. "Academic Integrity and the World Wide Web." Computers &
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———. "Influence of Situational Ethics on Cheating among College Students."
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(accessed November 1, 2007).
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