This handout (PDF) from Bedford/St. Martin’s has great information about avoiding plagiarism. If you do not have Adobe Reader, download it here.
BRTC Academic Integrity Policy
Academic integrity is the adherence to an ethical code of conduct within academic culture that emphasizes honesty in all scholarly work and includes the avoidance of plagiarism and cheating. Academic integrity promotes the ethical use of research material, protects the intellectual property of the scholars who produce the material, and avoids legal liability associated with copyright violation. Furthermore, students who adhere to academically honest practices maintain their personal integrity by holding themselves responsible for engaging with their assignments, which helps promote their own learning in their coursework.
Students are expected to do their own work on all examinations and assignments. They are also expected at all times to uphold high standards of integrity. Plagiarism, cheating, any other form of theft of intellectual property, allowing another individual to complete part or all coursework for a student, or assisting another student in doing any of these acts are all examples of academic dishonesty and are prohibited. These rules apply to concurrent, traditional, hybrid, and online students.
Cheating is a student’s attempt to deceive the instructor in his or her efforts to evaluate an academic exercise. Cheating includes copying another student’s homework, class work, or required project, whether in part or whole, and presenting this material to the instructor as the student’s own work. It also includes giving, receiving, offering, selling, buying, and or/soliciting information on an assignment, quiz, test, or examination.
Plagiarism is the intentional or unintentional copying of any published work whether from a book, magazine, audiovisual program, electronic media, film, or manuscript belonging to another student or another writer. It also includes purchasing written assignments from another person, company, or electronic paper-writing business. It will be deemed plagiarism when a student uses direct quotations without the proper usage of quotation marks and necessary attribution, when he or she uses the ideas of another without giving proper credit, or when he or she writes paraphrases that are not signifigantly different from the original work. Self-plagiarism (defined as the use of one’s work from a previous class without explicit approval from an instructor) is also prohibited.
In fairness to all students, each instructor must enforce strict regulations to ensure academic integrity. Any student who violates this policy may receive the letter grade of “F” for the specific assignment or examination. The instructor will also submit a written report of the incident to the appropriate dean. The dean will notify Student Affairs for documentation in the student’s permanent record as well as inform the appropriate academic vice president. In case of repeated infractions, other disciplinary sanctions will be imposed. Under the specific circumstances of multiple incidents, the student may be dropped from the class for academic dishonesty and the circumstances leading to this removal from the class be entered in the student’s permanent record. Continued infractions of this policy will result in the student’s expulsion from the college, and the reason for this expulsion will be entered into his or her permanent collegiate record.
If a student believes an erroneous accusation of academic misconduct has been made and the final course grade lowered as a result, the student may submit an appeal under the guidelines outlined in the Student Appeals Process.
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