Avoiding Plagiarism
OR
Knowing What Needs to Be Quoted
"Intellectual property" is an
important term in world of research paper writing. The challenge for young
writers is to make wise use of sources to form a knowledge base for writing
their paper and then to analyze and develop their own ideas from that knowledge
base.
As a matter of Christian ethics and scholarship, it is
expected that the ideas presented in a student's paper are the "intellectual property" of
that student.
Plagiarism is a term that describes
unethical use of materials by students or researchers. Plagiarism is using the
ideas or words of others without giving them credit. For research papers,
students are expected to find materials and sources to support their thesis and to
properly cite these resources. While at times plagiarism may consist simply of
poor use of research materials, plagiarism can also be defined as cheating and academic fraud.
Students who copy, purchase, or otherwise
obtain papers that are not their own are guilty of plagiarism. This also
applies to papers that have received "cosmetic" changes but are based on or
follow the outline of a paper provided by any source other than the student. Students are warned against the use of free internet cheat sites or sites that
allow students to purchase custom papers. Fox Valley Lutheran High School subscribes
to a screening service which can easily catch such papers.
Penalties for plagiarism are
handled according to the school's cheating policy. They range from an F on the assignment to
failure of the class or removal from the class.
Students who are members of the
National Honor Society and are involved in such cases of academic fraud will be
dismissed from that group since a requirement of that group is academic honesty.