My experience with authors in various disciplines over the past 30+ years (the past 15 with pharmaceutical and medical device researchers) suggests that deliberate dishonesty is rare. Yet casual note-taking, carelessness, absent-mindedness, or that now-legendary "failure to communicate" can lead to accidental dishonesty in the final paper.
The Internet has a wealth of documents that can help you avoid an inadvertent violation of GW's Code of Academic Integrity. Googling "avoid plagiarism" yields about 246,000 hits. Below are some sites you may find particularly useful.
The Center for Academic Integrity (George Washington University is a member organization) lets you download The Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity.
Purdue University's Avoiding Plagiarism site opens with wise words: "Academic writing in American institutions is filled with rules that writers often don't know how to follow. A working knowledge of these rules, however, is critically important; inadvertent mistakes can lead to charges of plagiarism or the unacknowledged use of somebody else's words or ideas."
Indiana University offers Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It.
St. Cloud State University provides useful suggestions for dealing with The Puzzling Paraphrase
The Undergraduate Academic Conduct Committee at Northwestern University has Guidelines for Proper Attribution on its page about How to Avoid Plagiarism
Article III makes up about half of the code document; it outlines the mission and composition of the Academic Integrity Council, the composition of the council and its hearing panels, the selection and removal of its members, case procedures, sanctions, hearing panel procedural guidelines, and appeals.
Any student who is interested in participating in the council, who wishes to report a violation, appeal a sanction, or simply get more information on the details of the procedures and processes may do so on GWU's Academic Integrity page. Article III is too detailed for a brief tutorial, but it here is one important excerpt from Section 5, which recommends sanctions for violations of the code.
Sanction Recommendations. For a first offense case, the Code recommends a failing grade for the assignment in question. The recommendation for repeat violation cases is failure of the course. The document also specifies, "Attempts to commit acts prohibited by this Code may be punished to the same extent as completed violations."
The Code of Academic Integrity has "jurisdiction over . . . all programs in the Medical Center, except the Doctor of Medicine program." The complete, tightly formatted document runs to 8 or 10 pages-depending on your printer. Below are highlights of the section on academic dishonesty from that document, which you can read in its entirety on the Academic Integrity page.
Article II, Section 1 defines academic dishonesty as "cheating of any kind, including misrepresenting one's own work, taking credit for the work of others without crediting them and without appropriate authorization, and the fabrication of information." The document lists "common examples of academically dishonest behavior [that] include, but are not limited to," cheating, fabrication, plagiarism, falsification, forgery, and facilitating academic dishonesty.
Cheating. Most students-even elementary school pupils-can name the most familiar forms of cheating: taking "crib notes" to an exam, copying from a classmate, having a ghost writer do a homework assignment. Some students, however, may not understand that they are violating the code if they submit the same work in more than one course without first getting permission from both instructors.
Fabrication. Everyone has heard of journalists who were fired for inventing "facts" and/or sources. Students who try that approach to coursework are subject to sanctions, as described in Article III, Section 5.
Plagiarism. Most students know that intentionally representing as their own another person's words, ideas, or sequence of ideas is plagiarism (from the Latin plagirius, meaning kidnapper). They may not know that an absent-minded student who fails to attribute the original author of a quotation, paraphrased information, or facts or ideas has also committed plagiarism. Like a distracted shopper who accidentally steals an item by carrying it out of a store without paying for it, a careless student can accidentally plagiarize a source. Don't risk it. Word processing software makes it easy to attach attributions to your notes.
The Hamilton College (Clinton, NY) Writing Center offers practical advice on Using Sources. Its introductory paragraph states, "Drawing on the ideas of others as you develop your own is an essential and exciting component of intellectual work," and is followed by this instruction:
Whenever you use other writers' ideas, however, you must acknowledge your sources. Doing so allows you to distinguish between your ideas and those of others; it directs your readers to relevant sources; and it allows you to give credit where credit is due.
A passage from that quotation bears emphasizing: "you must acknowledge your sources." Failure to do so -- whether accidentally or intentionally -- kidnaps another writer's thoughts. A thoughtless student could even be sued for violating the author's or publisher's copyright.
Falsification and Forgery. It seems likely that all students know it is dishonest to knowingly make a false statement or to forge a University official's signature on an academic document or record. But the Code has to cover all the bases (details are in Article II, Section 1).
Facilitating Academic Dishonesty. Anyone who has ever watched a police or lawyer movie will also understand that an "accessory" can be as guilty as a perpetrator by intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another to commit a dishonest act.
Although I have not worked with every professor and instructor in the program, it seems to me that most, if not all, have incorporated this advice from the code (Article II, Section 3) into their courses.
Instructors are encouraged to provide opportunities for students to affirm their commitment to academic integrity in various settings, including examinations and other assignments. The following statement may be used for this purpose: "I, (student's name), affirm that I have completed this assignment/examination in accordance with the Code of Academic Integrity."
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