Academic Integrity

Community School

Academic Integrity Guide:

• • Community School values academic integrity because we believe it is vital that students complete their own work in order to grow as learners.

  • We believe the trust between teachers and students is paramount in developing relationships that foster intellectual growth.

  • Teachers need to know what students are currently capable of producing without the aid of unauthorized help in order to tailor instruction to best meet the needs of each student.

  • Community School’s positive and nurturing learning environment, fostered through close, compassionate teacher student relationships, is founded upon the belief that students take ownership of their work.

• • It is the responsibility of each Community School student to read, understand, and follow the Academic Integrity Guide.

  • Many departments and individual courses will have additional expectations regarding academic integrity; it is the responsibility of each Community School student to learn about these additional expectations, seek help from the teacher if confused, and follow the rules for each course.

  • Community School’s Academic Integrity Guide specifies the expectations of all faculty members regarding academic integrity. Each faculty member at Community School shares the following expectations regarding specific assignments.

Plagiarism

Academic dishonesty primarily involves plagiarism — the submission of any written work that is from an uncited outside source. Paraphrasing or summarizing an idea or ideas from another text or person without a citation is plagiarism. While plagiarism most frequently occurs in student papers, it can also occur on student projects, posters, or other student written work submitted as their own. Please review the section on Academic Integrity and Papers for ways to cite properly the ideas and work of others and create Works Cited Pages.

Homework Policies

All homework assignments should represent the student’s own thinking, writing, and work. Homework’s primary purpose is to give you a chance to practice learning the material in the course. Representing the ideas of others as your own damages your ability to grow as a learner.

●      Unless specifically instructed otherwise in the assignment, collaborating with others on homework can and should include:

○      talking about the ideas in the assignment with other people

○      asking other people questions about things you don’t understand

○      listening to other people’s opinions about the topic

○      using other people to help you find information

●      Unless specifically instructed otherwise in the assignment, collaborating with others on homework should not include:

○    copying other students’ or others’ answers, even if you change a few words

○     using other people’s opinions and answers as your own without reflection and modification of those opinions and answers  

○    letting other students use your own answers or opinions inappropriately

○    having other people find and/or  provide the information without your involvement

     ○    collaborating with others on homework that does not require collaboration and that  

           the teachers wants each student to work on individually. See teachers for

           clarification for each subject

In addition, inappropriate use of resources constitutes:

• • not citing help from internet for answers to homework questions

  • copying solely the answers from the back of the book without demonstrating the process of steps to arrive at the answer

If you receive help on homework from students, parents, tutors, other teachers than the teacher who assigned the homework, and/or others, you should never represent their work as your own if you were unable to reflect upon and modify their assistance. You should always convey in writing that you received their help.

Tests & Quizzes

A test or quiz should represent a fair and equal chance for all students to show their current abilities in a course. Copying answers or receiving unauthorized help on a test or quiz not only prevents students from growing as learners, it creates an unfair advantage over others on assessments.

Academic dishonesty on tests and quizzes includes:

• • copying off of another student's paper during an assessment

  • taking a test or a quiz after someone else does and asking them about the questions or looking at any copy of the test or quiz before you take it

  • taking a test or a quiz before other people and telling others what was on the assessment or showing it to others

  • using any unauthorized material during test or quiz

  • using the notes/study guides of others during a test or quiz

  • programming information into calculators, watches, cell phones, etc., and access these during an exam

  • saving and accessing any unauthorized material on the hard drive of a laptop being used in an exam, obtaining information from a website or other unauthorized source, or using email to exchange information with a classmate

  • using signals to exchange answers with a classmate

  • acquiring or attempting to acquire a copy of the assessment before it is administered

  • resubmitting an assessment for a new grade after altering a previously wrong answer or write an answer to a question you did not answer

  • stealing or altering another student’s or faculty member’s assignments, books, papers, notes, experiments, projects, etc, in preparations for an assessment for the purpose of gaining an unfair academic advantage

Take-Home Tests & Quizzes

All take-home tests and quizzes must be completed independently by students, unless otherwise indicated on the assignment. Any unauthorized help on take-home tests and quizzes constitutes academic dishonesty.

“Unauthorized help” includes help received from any other person or student or from materials or sources prohibited by the instructor. If supplementary materials are allowed, the materials must be the student’s own work.

Group Projects

Community School teachers value group projects because collaboration with others toward a common goal is a key life skill to develop.

Group projects work well when students are held accountable for individual work that contributes to the final product and its success. Group projects do not work well when students rely on one or two students to complete most of the project work.

It is academically dishonest to receive academic credit when a student has contributed little to no work toward the final product in a group project. When this situation arises, it is in the best interest of all students involved (both those completing the work and those not completing the work) to consult the teacher who assigned the group project, if students cannot work out the shared roles on their own.

Work With Tutors

Working with tutors can be integral to student academic success at Community School and in future academic endeavors. That said, assistance received from tutors should always remain instructive through modeling ways of completing similar problems in math or science or structuring a paragraph, but the student work handed in for academic credit must be the student’s own.

Please consult the plagiarism and paper sections of this guide for help with citing the unaltered written and verbal help received from tutors. As in most cases with academic integrity, students should consult their teachers if they are unclear about whether or not the assistance they received constitutes academic dishonesty.

All the ideas you gain from others must be cited, even if an idea is developed from a tutoring session or other scenarios in which you receive new, original ideas you represent as your own. In addition, receiving help from the teacher who assigned the work is always a best practice for students.

Cite Parenthetically: (full name, discussion format, date)

(Hugh Ayque, Tutoring Session, February 14, 2009).

Works Cited Page:

Last Name, First Name. discussion format, sponsoring context if any, location, date.

Ayque, Hugh. Tutoring Session, Lee Pesky Center, Sun Valley, ID ,February 14, 2009.

Translator Use

We recognize that in today's online world, the paper dictionary has become obsolete, and that students use online dictionaries in English as well as in other languages. But with foreign language, the ready use of online dictionaries/translators poses some problems for the student who seeks to acquire a new language.

We ask that you adhere to the following policy when it comes to looking up words and phrases, and that you come to us immediately when you have questions about the appropriateness of your use of online dictionaries/translators.

• You must use one of the dictionaries approved by the World Language Department. For the time being, those include: http://dictionary.reverso.net/ and wordreference.com

• You may look up single words or idiomatic expressions for homework, papers, and other assignments. You may NOT look up translations for phrases or sentences. When you find your translation, please make a note of the full entry for the word — Is it a verb? A noun? What is the gender? It would be a good idea to keep a section in your notebook or a google doc with all of the vocabulary that you look up over the course of a term.

• If you use language in a paper that you have looked up, you must bold the text in the paper, and then list the language below along with a brief entry on its meaning, part of speech, etc.

Failure to follow these guidelines will result in a conversation and a potential loss of points the first time, a certain loss of points and/or credit for the assignment the second time, and the possibility of disciplinary action for academic dishonesty for any subsequent times. When in doubt, ask us if it is appropriate!

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Papers

All student papers should represent the work of the student writing the paper, properly parenthetically cite the work of others, and include a Works Cited page at the end of the paper, unless otherwise instructed by the teacher.

Academic dishonesty on papers primarily involves plagiarism — the submission of any written work or original ideas of others without a citation.

Citing a passage parenthetically, yet failing to identify a passage by use of quotation marks for an embedded quotation or creating a block quotation without quotation marks, may not reach the level of academic dishonesty, but is sloppy academic work.

Failing to cite a passage parenthetically, but using quotation marks for an embedded quotation or creating a block quotation without quotation marks, is also sloppy academic work.

Always cite direct quotations and paraphrases of the original ideas of others and include a Works Cited page to show the reader of your paper the source of the quotation or idea.

If you are confused about the need to cite an idea or how to cite a passage, it is best practice for students to ask their teachers before submitting the paper to the teacher.

Please consult the parenthetical citation help, use of ellipses, italics, and parentheses in a quotation help, and Works Cited page help links below and in The Writing Guide.

Citing parenthetically and Creating a Works Cited Page: Guidelines and examples

See your teachers for specific citing and Works Cited guidelines for different disciplines.

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DISCIPLINARY CONSEQUENCES FOR ACADEMIC DISHONESTY

I understand that most cases of a first time academic integrity violation may result in:

• • A conversation between the teacher who gave the assignment and the Division Head, along with a phone call home by the teacher and/or Division Head to notify parents of the issue.

  • A meeting between student, parent, teacher, and/or Division Head will take place.

  • A record of the incident will be kept on file for future reference by the Division Head.

  • Student letter addressing the context for the academic integrity issue and ways to avoid it in the future.

  • Students may receive a non-passing grade on the given assignment. Teachers will have the discretion to offer a make-up opportunity in order for the student to show competency and to earn a passing grade.

PLAGIARISM SCENARIOS:

Directions:  Read the following writing assignments and student responses and determine whether or not the student work is or would be considered plagiarism. If you do need to cite, determine how you would cite.

Answers to these scenarios are below.

1. RESEARCH PAPER:  You are writing your junior thesis on the constitutionality of the death penalty in the U.S. Supreme Court. You go to the web site www.streetlaw.com and there is a documentary video on “The Life and Times of John Marshall.”  You watch. You like. You learn. Specifically, you learn that John Marshall created the concept of judicial review in his landmark opinion Marbury v Madison. You have never learned this fact in class or from other readings. You then go to write your research paper and you write that John Marshall conferred the right of judicial review to the Supreme Court in Marbury v Madison. You do not cite the web site.

Is this plagiarism?

2. PERSUASIVE PAPER:  You are writing a persuasive paper on whether or not William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice combats or reinforces anti-Semitism. You write the following persuasive paragraph:

It is clear that the Jews in late 16th Century Venice were victims of discrimination from Christians. In William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, Shylock suffers from anti-Semitic behavior throughout the play, but always seeks to prove a point about these injustices. Shakespeare expresses the idea of equality to all humans through Shylock. In an attempt to show that all humans are equal, Shylock asks:

Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Hew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.

(III, I, 57-67).

At this point in the play, Shylock’s daughter Jessica has run away from him, has taken his gold and precious ring, and has converted to Christianity to marry Lorenzo. Shylock goes out searching for Jessica, when he sees Salarino. Salarino tells Shylock that Jessica left him because she must not have his Jewish blood and that maybe she has good sense. He then goes on to tell Shylock that he must not kill Antonio and forfeit the bond. In this passage, Shylock is telling Salarino that he has no reason to hate Jews. He tells him that they both share the same bodies, senses, and  diseases. He tells Salarino that it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Christian because you are both humans. In Jerome Carlin’s “The Case against The Merchant of Venice,” he states that one must not dwell on this speech, because Shylock has 339 other lines that are irrational. He also says that the speech starts and ends with violent expressions. He writes, “it begins and ends with an ignoble expression of the lust of revenge. It is submerged…in the 339 other lines.”  It is indeed true that this is only 22 lines of the play and that Shylock speaks of violence; however, because Shakespeare understands the idea that all humans are equal and writes about it through a Jew rather than a Christian, this passages shows us that Shakespeare is not ant-Semitic. By saying, are not Jews “warmed and cooled by the same winter as a Christian is,” this speech could not be a clearer example of an understanding of equality. Also, Shylock had no choice but to be violent because it is quite clear that the Christians were not listening to his words and Shylock had no recourse in a court of law.

Is this plagiarism?

3. ANALYSIS PAPER:  You are assigned to write an analysis of the moment when Eve is persuaded by Satan to eat the apple in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. You have a discussion with your tutor (Hugh Ayque), who argues that Eve placed more faith in her senses than in her imagination and that one of Eve’s flaws was her failure to get beyond reason and sensory experience to develop faith in God. Hugh’s idea is an original one, and the teacher and the critical essays read in class did not touch on this point. You consult your notes from this tutoring session and decide to argue in your analysis paper that one of Eve’s many flaws was her inability to imagine toward faith in and obedience to God. You present this analysis without citation.

Is this plagiarism?

4.     HISTORY PAPER:  Below are the original source of a passage and a student’s paraphrase of the passage with a citation. Read both carefully and determine if the student plagiarized.

ORIGINAL SOURCE:

Kerry [was] surrounded by an all-star team of political professionals, including [Jim] Jordan and [Bob] Shrum, a top consultant of Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.

But it was also a campaign of uneasy factions and overlapping assignments. Kerry, for example, was advised by two pollsters, two media and advertising experts, and two speech writing consultants. He also had two inner circles: one composed of hired hands in Washington; the other of old friends, family members and longtime loyalists in Boston….People both inside and outside the Kerry brain trust say Kerry himself ultimately bears the responsibility for his sometimes fuzzy message. (Farhi 1).

STUDENT PARAGRAPH:

John Kerry’s campaign, on the other hand, was a disaster. Kerry had an all-star team of political advisors and analysts, but was unable to foster any sense of unity. Kerry never really had a clear leader and lacked basic campaign strategy. Even though Senator Kerry surrounded himself with a phenomenal team of political advisors (some from Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign), he allowed factions to develop within his political campaign: the Washington experts battled for sway with family members and friends from Boston. Ultimately, Senator Kerry bears the responsibility for the fuzzy message that was often the result of trying to appease two advisory camps within his own campaign (Farhi 1-2). John Kerry not only lacked a clear campaign message, but he also lacked a clear personal message. John Kerry was known as a “flip-flopper” and constantly struggled to find his identity. This fuzzy or unclear message ultimately cost Kerry the presidency. Kerry and his advisors were simply unable to match the campaign strategy of George Bush and Karl Rove.

Is this plagiarism?

ANSWERS TO PLAGIARISM EXERCISE:

1.    Answer:  YES. This is plagiarism. You cannot submit the ideas of others as your own even when you are unsure of the exact language of those ideas. You need to cite the ideas you think you may have gained from watching the documentary on the website.

Here is how unless otherwise instructed by your teacher:

Cite Parenthetically:  (first item listed in the Works Cited Page for the web site)

2. Answer:  NO. While this careens toward the precipice of plagiarism and academic dishonesty, it is not plagiarism to omit a citation. But it is sloppy academic work. A student cannot submit the ideas of others by just placing the ideas and language of others in quotation marks. S/he needs to cite the passage in which s/he quotes the literary critic.

Here is how to cite this sentence from Carlin:

Cite Parenthetically: (Carlin 389).

He writes, “It begins and ends with an ignoble expression of the lust of revenge. It is submerged…in the 339 other lines.” (Carlin 389).

Works Cited Page:

Carlin, Jerome. “The Case against The Merchant of Venice”  The English Journal  New York:  The English

Journal Press, 1963.

3. Answer:  YES. All the ideas you gain from others must be cited, even if an idea is developed from a tutoring session or other scenarios in which you receive new, original ideas you represent in your paper. You do not need to cite ideas developed by the teacher or class discussions.

After you develop the idea that Eve failed to imagine toward faith, you would parenthetically cite as follows:

Cite Parenthetically: (full name, discussion format, date)

(Hugh Ayque, Tutoring Session, February 14, 2009).

Works Cited Page:

Last Name, First Name. Discussion format, sponsoring context if any, location, date.

Ayque, Hugh. Tutoring Session, Lee Pesky Center, Sun Valley, ID, February 14, 2009.

5. Answer:  YES. This is plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Even though the essay writer rightly cites the ideas of the paraphrase  (see Farhi 1-2), s/he has exact phrases that are not placed in quotations from the original text. For example, the paraphrase “team of political advisors (some from Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign),” is too close to  the original “Kerry [was] surrounded by an all-star team of political professionals, including [Jim] Jordan and [Bob] Shrum, a top consultant of Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign.”  Also, the paraphrase “Kerry bears the responsibility for the fuzzy message” is too close to the original “Kerry himself ultimately bears the responsibility for his sometimes fuzzy message. “  And there are other exact phrases in the analysis paragraph.

Solution #1:            place quotation marks around the exact phrases and sentences and cite.

Solution #2:            paraphrase and cite without using the exact language from the source:

John Kerry’s campaign, on the other hand, was a disaster. Kerry had competent political advisors and analysts, but was unable to foster any sense of unified message from their political advice. Kerry never really had a clear leader and lacked basic campaign strategy. Even though Senator Kerry surrounded himself with political experts, he did not control the different ideas developed within his group of political advisors. Ultimately, Kerry’s failed campaign resulted, not from his inability to speak well (he is a brilliant rhetorician), but from his inability to synthesize the ideas of his political advisory team into a simple message the American people could readily grasp. (Farhi 1-2). Kerry not only lacked a clear campaign message, but he also lacked a clear personal message. Kerry was known as a “flip-flopper” and constantly struggled to find his identity. This unclear message ultimately cost Kerry the presidency. He and his advisors were simply unable to match the campaign strategy of George Bush and Karl Rove.