Mrs. Reed's Literature & Language Classroom



Staying Academically Honest

Remember: to use any person’s materials to cheat on an assessment or assignment or to present any person’s work as one’s own constitutes academic dishonesty.

To avoid inappropriate collaboration, check your actions against this list:

❑ The shared knowledge does not give you an unfair advantage on a test or quiz (e.g., asking a student in an earlier class to share what is on a test or quiz that you will take later in the day).

❑ You are not presenting the work of another student as your own work.

❑ You are not allowing another student to present your work as his or her own.

❑ You have not collaborated on an assignment that was meant for you to work on alone.

❑ Your collaboration was sanctioned by the teacher (the teacher knows about it and approves, and you have acknowledged that collaboration in writing).

❑ The work accomplished by your collaboration was shared fairly.

To avoid plagiarizing researched material, check your work against this list:

❑ All of the sources you consulted and used appear in your bibliography or Works Cited page.

❑ Any of the original author’s words is presented within quotation marks.

❑ Quoted passages are presented in the author’s original wording.

❑ Any of the author’s theories, ideas or interpretations, whether quoted or paraphrased, is cited.

❑ The main point of your writing is not a copying or borrowing of one author’s interpretation (such as Cliff Notes) but a synthesis of interpretations. Even better, the main point of your writing is a synthesis that includes your ideas.

❑ Paraphrased material is written in your own words, not the words of the original author, AND the original source is cited parenthetically.

❑ You have written the paraphrased sections without looking at the original work. Your paraphrase should involve new vocabulary (at least 5 out of 10 words) and a new order. Rewrite and rearrange. You have not cut and pasted (or copied) the original author’s words, then simply changed words or phrases here and there.

❑ You have not copied the order of ideas from the original author.

❑ Any images or original graphs or charts are cited.

❑ Note: statistics and facts that are commonly known (easily obtainable in multiple sources) need NOT be cited.

What is True and Sanctioned Collaboration?

• You and another student have the same assignment topic, and you send each other source suggestions. Both partners are contributing the same number of sources to the research process.

• You are reading a research source and are struggling to understand it. You ask another student or an adult to help translate and interpret it for you. S/he translates a short section and leaves you with completing 95% of the work.

• You and another student have a discussion about both of your assignments to determine what your thesis will be. Both partners contribute to the discussion. Both partners go off and create their own, individual thesis statement.

• You are struggling with paraphrasing. A friend gives you a few suggestions on how to reword or rearrange a few sentences. The rest of the paraphrasing (95% or more) you complete on your own.

• You and another student (or an adult) meet to review your essay draft. The other person indicates grammatical errors and lack of clarity and makes a number of suggestions and even notes. You do all the rewriting and correcting yourself.

If these scenarios above don’t cover all situations you might face, please be sure to ask your teacher for his/her opinion.

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