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ACADEMIC HONESTY: 1

All members of the University community must participate in the development of a climate conducive to academic honesty. While the faculty, because of their unique role in the educational process, have the responsibility for defining, encouraging, fostering and upholding the ethic of academic honesty, students have the responsibility of conforming in all respects to that ethic.

Intellectual honesty requires that students demonstrate their own learning during examinations and other academic exercises, and that other sources of information or knowledge be appropriately credited. Scholarship depends upon the reliability of information and reference in the work of others. No form of cheating, plagiarism, fabrication, or facilitating of dishonesty will be condoned in the University community. [URR, P. 35].

Policy Concerning Academic Honesty

The integrity of the academic enterprise of any institution of higher education requires honesty in scholarship and research. Academic honesty is therefore required of all students at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Academic dishonesty is prohibited in all programs of the University. Academic dishonesty includes but is not limited to:

Cheating - intentional use, and/or attempted use of trickery, artifice, deception, breach of confidence, fraud and/or misrepresentation of one's academic work.

Fabrication - intentional and unauthorized falsification and/or invention of any information or citation in any academic exercise.

Plagiarism - knowingly representing the words or ideas of another, as one's own work in any academic exercise. This includes submitting without citation, in whole or in part, prewritten term papers of another or the research of another, including but not limited to commercial vendors who sell or distribute such materials.

Facilitating dishonesty - knowingly helping or attempting to help another commit an act of academic dishonesty, including substituting for another in an examination, or allowing others to represent as their own one's papers, reports, or academic works.

Sanctions may be imposed on any student who has committed an act of academic dishonesty.

Any person who has reason to believe that a student has committed academic dishonesty should bring such information to the attention of the appropriate course instructor as soon as possible [URR, P. 70].

Plagiarism

In the preparation of class and written work intellectual honesty demands that a student acknowledge the course of all information she/he has gathered, including the work of other students. Failure to do so is plagiarism and is a violation of the University's Academic Honesty Policy.

  1. Examples
    1. Failure to properly identify direct quotations by quotation marks, appropriate indentation and formal citation.
    2. Failure to acknowledge and cite paraphrasing or summarizing material from another source.
  1. Comments
    1. Direct quotation: Every direct quotation must be identified by quotation marks or by appropriate indentation and must be promptly cited in a footnote. Proper footnote style for many academic departments is outlined by the MLA Style Sheet or K.L. Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations. These and similar publications are available in the University bookstore or library. Please ask your instructor for guidance.

    2. Paraphrase: Prompt acknowledgement is required when material from another source is paraphrased or summarized in whole or in part in your own words. To acknowledge a paraphrase properly, one might state: "to paraphrase Locke's comment…" and conclude with a footnote identifying the exact reference. A footnote acknowledging only a directly quoted statement does not suffice to notify the reader of any preceding or succeeding paraphrased material.

    3. Borrowed facts or information: Information obtained in one's reading or research which is not common knowledge among students in the course must be acknowledge. Examples of common knowledge might include the names of leaders of prominent nations, basic scientific laws, etc. Materials which contribute only to one's general understanding of the subject may be acknowledged in the bibliography and need not be immediately footnoted. One footnote is usually sufficient to acknowledge indebtedness when a number of connected sentences in the paper draw their special information from one source. When direct quotations are used, however, quotation marks must be inserted and prompt acknowledgement is required [URR, P. 77-79].

    1 Excerpts from the Undergraduate Rights & Responsibilities 2001-2002, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Abbreviated as URR. See URR directly for entire set of regulations and policies.