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The
English Department's Statement About Honesty
College
courses require that students and instructors be honest with themselves
and with their classes. With a candid exchange of ideas and opinions,
students and teachers will grow as individuals and as a class.
Therefore, the work students submit must be their own—with
their own strengths, weaknesses, ideas, and writing, just as the
comments instructors make about that work must be academically
honest.
Failure to adhere
to these principles will lead students to plagiarism. Plagiarism,
taken from the Latin word plagiarius, literally means “kidnapping.”
Just as a kidnapper steals a child from a parent, a plagiarist steals
words and ideas from someone else. More specifically, plagiarism
occurs when writers pass off as their own work ideas, opinions,
wording, or anything else that comes from other sources (books,
essays, magazines, newspapers, electronic media, films, tutors,
friends, and relatives). Even material rewritten as paraphrases
or summaries must be documentedappropriately to the assignment and
to the teacher's directions.
Students may,
however, receive advice about their writing. The reader of a paper
may identify a problem, but that person may not correct the problem.
For example, a reader may say that the punctuation or sentence structure
of a passage is faulty, that misspellings are evident, or that the
organization of a paragraph is defective. The reader of an essay
may not, however, rewrite an unsuccessful sentence or paragraph.
Nor may that person correct the grammar, punctuation, or spelling.
Of course, the person who is helping may not dictate the essay or
edit the work in any way. When students are in doubt about the assistance
they receive, they should refer to their handbooks, then do their
own correcting. Totally independent work is always the safest procedure.
Plagiarizing
is dishonest—or, more candidly, cheating. Consequently, plagiarized
essays will receive an “F,” or a zero, at the discretion
of the instructor. In addition, such a practice may prevent students
from passing a course and may result in other disciplinary action.
Revised and
copyrighted © by the English Department of the Alexandria Campus
of Northern Virginia Community College, in August 1997.
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