Sample Materials

Baruch College

An email (fairly long) is sent to all members of our faculty a few days before each semester. Some of it is pretty specific to Baruch College. Near the bottom there is a link to a webpage with syllabus statements by several members of our faculty. For what it's worth, getting members of the faculty to include such statements is one battle I think we are winning. Getting to discuss these issues is another thing.

Baruch College's Committee on Academic Integrity sends the following for your consideration. Members of the faculty (and students) interested in joining the committee should let me know.

Students have come to anticipate statements on syllabi affirming support for academic integrity and to expect members of the faculty to reinforce those values in discussion and in practice on assignments and during exams.

Statements can be as simple or elaborate as you wish, but please include whatever academic sanctions you plan to impose for violations. Any of the three sample statements below may be cut and pasted, or revised, or can serve to inspire your own. Also included below are working definitions of plagiarism; including definitions (feel free to devise your own) helps both to inform students and to protect faculty members. Directing students to the online plagiarism tutorial (cited in the Statement #3 below) also can be very beneficial. The items below conclude with some links to other resources and sample syllabi.

Statement #1

I fully support Baruch College's policy on Academic Honesty [or the Department of X fully supports...], which states, in part: "Academic dishonesty is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Cheating, forgery, plagiarism and collusion in dishonest act undermine the college's educational mission and the students' personal and intellectual growth. Baruch students are expected to bear individual responsibility for their work, to learn the rules and definitions that underlie the practice of academic integrity, and to uphold its ideals. Ignorance of the rules is not an acceptable excuse for disobeying them. Any student who attempts to compromise or devalue the academic process will be sanctioned. "

Academic sanctions in this class will range from an F on the assignment to an F in this course. [Note to faculty: academic sanctions are at your discretion.] A report of suspected academic dishonesty will be sent to the Office of the Dean of Students.

Additional information and definitions can be found on the Academic Honesty web page.

Statement #2

Cheating and plagiarism are serious offenses. The following definitions are based on the College's Academic Honesty website: Cheating is the attempted or unauthorized use of materials, information, notes, study aids, devices or communication during an academic exercise.
Examples include but are not limited to:

Copying from another student during an examination or allowing another to copy your work
Unauthorized collaborating on a examination Using unauthorized notes during a closed book examination
Using unauthorized electronic devices during an examination
Taking an examination for another student
Asking or allowing another student to take an examination for you
Changing a corrected exam and returning it for more credit classes without consulting the second instructor
Preparing answers or writing notes in a blue book (exam booklet) before an examination
Allowing others to research and write assigned papers including the use of commercial term paper services

Plagiarism is the act of presenting another person's ideas, research or writing as your own: Copying another person's actual words without the use of quotation marks and footnotes (a functional limit is four or more words taken from the work of another) Presenting another person's ideas or theories in your own words without acknowledging them. Using information that is not considered common knowledge without acknowledging the source. Failure to acknowledge collaborators on homework and laboratory assignment

My policy is to give a failing grade to any assignment that has been plagiarized or an exam in which you have cheated. [Again: academic sanctions are at the discretion of the faculty member, up to an F for the course.] In addition, I am required by College policy to submit a report of suspected academic dishonesty to the Office of the Dean of Students. This report becomes part of your permanent file.

Statement #3

Learning involves the pursuit of truth, which cannot be pursued by presenting someone else's work as your own. By following the procedure outlined below, you will establish a basis of trust that will remain unless you provide reason to suspect it has been violated.

Visit the college's homepage and look under the Academics menu for academic honesty.
Visit the Academic Honesty web page
Read the material it contains.
Send me an email (or bring a signed statement to class) truthfully stating that you have read the web page, understood it, and that you agree to act according to the principles it expresses.

For further discussion of plagiarism and clarification of its parameters, see the online plagiarism tutorial prepared by members of the Newman Library faculty. If questions remain, ask me. Ignorance is not an acceptable excuse for unacceptable practices. For the record, if you violate the precepts of academic integrity you will receive a zero for the assignment [insert the academic sanction you prefer] and your name will be forwarded to the Office of the Dean of Students, where a notation will become part of your file at Baruch.

A Definition of Plagiarism

Plagiarism means passing off the work of others as your own. The "work of others" means other people's words and/or ideas. "Passing off...as your own" means including that work in your assignment without adequate citation. Therefore, a slightly longer definition would be "Plagiarism means including in your assignment other people's words and/or ideas without citing them correctly." Here are some hints about citation: When you include the actual words of others, be they from a printed source, from the web, or from a live presentation, they must appear within quotation marks and you must indicate from where and from whom the words came. Otherwise you are plagiarizing. When you include another person's ideas, you must indicate where you found those ideas, even when you are paraphrasing them. Following someone else's sequence of ideas, even if you paraphrase them, is also plagiarism. (An example would be paraphrasing a paragraph from someone else's work sentence by sentence, even if you include a citation of that author.) If you have any questions about these definitions, please discuss them with me. You can also refer to Baruch's online plagiarism tutorial or to Ann Raimes, Keys for Writers pp. 116-128 (4th ed.), 104-112 (3rd ed.), where you can also read about correct styles of citation.

As suggested above, while a syllabus item can be very helpful, the importance of actually talking about the meaning and significance of integrity within the academic environment can't be overstated.