American Culture 103

The International Center for Academic Integrity defines academic integrity as a commitment, even in the face of adversity, to six fundamental values: honesty, trust, fairness, respect, responsibility, and courage. From these values flow principles of behavior that enable academic communities to translate ideals to action. 

The U-M College of Literature, Science, and Arts defines academic misconduct as “academic dishonesty may be understood as any action or attempted action that may result in creating an unfair academic advantage for oneself or an unfair academic advantage or disadvantage for any other member or members of the academic community.”

Honoring the precepts of academic integrity and applying its principles are fundamental responsibilities of all scholars. The University Library and the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching have created this site to help the university community uphold these ideals. Our intention is to increase understanding of what academic integrity is in practice.

Everyone learns better when we trust that the values of academic integrity are actively engaged by our fellow students and colleagues. It is important to learn to integrate others' work and ideas ethically into your own work in many facets of your life from school to work environments.

There can be many ramifications for not adhering to principles of academic integrity, such as 

• You could be suspended, with or without conditions.
• You could fail your assignment or your course.
• You could receive a notation in either your unofficial or official transcript.
• You could be permanently expelled from school.
• Your degree could be withheld or revoked.
• You erode trust that could impact your future professional and personal integrity

The Council of Writing Program Administrators defines plagiarism in an instructional context as "occur[ing] when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source.  This definition applies to texts published in print or on-line, to manuscripts, and to the work of other student writers."  Plagiarism and citing sources incorrectly are two different situations.  If writers make every effort to cite sources accurately but do not cite adequately or do not use the correct citation style, they are not plagiarizing.  Plagiarism occurs when a writer intentionally takes credit for someone else's ideas or words.

Plagiarism is perhaps the most common form of academic dishonesty.  However, there are many types of plagiarism, and most plagiarism is not intentional. Frequently, it is the result of taking insufficient notes when reading your sources. Below are several types of plagiarism of which you should be aware.

Accidental Plagiarism

• Forgetting to place quotation marks around another's words
• Omitting a source citation for another's idea because you are unaware
• Carelessly copying a source which you mean to paraphrase

Intentional Plagiarism

• Copying a phrase, sentence, or passage from a source and passing it off as your own
• Summarizing or paraphrasing someone else's ideas without acknowledging your debt
• Handing in a paper you bought or had a friend write or copied from another student

The library has created a graphic representation to show you the range of intentional and unintentional plagiarism activities.