Academic Integrity for Students

In Assiniboine's Policy A25, plagiarism is defined as "using another's words, ideas, theories or images without crediting the source" (Assiniboine Community College, 2013). Sources are credited through the citations and references of American Psychological Association [APA] style. The most common sources for the work of "another" used and not cited by Assiniboine students are:

• websites found through search engines like Google

Other sources of plagiarism are:

• friends
• classmates
• parents
• siblings
• spouses
• partners
• tutors
• students in similar programs at other schools

It's recommended that course outlines and assignment instructions be very clear on citing expectations in order to avoid confusion. This is especially true for:

• images
• formulas
• coding
• other non-textual information

In all cases, talk to your instructor regarding their expectations about citing and plagiarism.

APA is Assiniboine's official citing style. It allows students to avoid plagiarism by citing their sources, and to complete their coursework with academic integrity.

Assiniboine's citing standard is what's called a “student” level, which focuses on basic citations and references in essays, rather than writing original research for publication. This practice also helps avoid "citation fixation" (Stephens, 2014) and "citation obsession" (Schick, 2011), which in turn contribute to negative, punitive, and reactive rule compliance cultures (Bertram Gallant, 2008) that academic integrity research recommends avoiding. 

Students at a community college level aren't expected or required to know or use what APA calls “professional” level writing skills, which would be suitable at a graduate university level.

The author last names and dates which make up the citations on the pages of this guide, along with their corresponding references on the references page, are examples of citing in APA style. These let you know, as the reader, what sources were used in the research for this guide, as well as where to find them for yourself. To use these sources without crediting them using both a citation and reference would be plagiarism, whether the exact wording was used, or any amount of words were changed.

The same principle will apply to many written assignments that you do as an Assiniboine student. It may also apply to not only written sources that you have used, but:

• graphics
• coding
• formulas
• images
• sound clips
• video clips
• interviews
• presentations
• or any other material which is not your own.

Learning this type of academic skill is not easy or fast, and Assiniboine staff and faculty will work with you to develop this skill over time. This could be in the form of:

• online resources
• in-class workshops
• individual appointments with support staff

The Assiniboine Library's APA citing guide is a good place to start building your citing skills.

Essay Section with Possible Plagiarism

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was a groundbreaking book because it was the first modern science fiction story. It was written at a time when people were worried about scientists playing god and scared of what might happen in the future if science had a free reign without morals. It was also a horror story because it dealt with death and gory details of decaying flesh. The original story was written over one weekend while Mary Shelley was staying with Shelley and Byron and they were challenging each other to write the scariest story.

Essay Section with Correct Citations

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) was a groundbreaking book because it was the first modern science fiction story (Ordover, 2007). It was written at a time when people were worried about scientists playing god and scared of what might happen in the future if science had a free reign without morals (Morton, 2002). It was also a horror story because it dealt with death and gory details of decaying flesh. The original story was written over one weekend while Mary Shelley was staying with Shelley and Byron and they were challenging each other to write the scariest story (Ordover, 2007).

• discuss plagiarism and academic integrity with your instructor
• understand how to quote and paraphrase
• use academic integrity checklist
• keep careful research notes
• cite all sources – regardless of their format – that are not your own
• use a citation manager like NoodleTools, MS Word, Zotero, or others
• proofread your assignment before submitting

Does your assignment follow academic integrity standards?

• I fully understand the purpose, requirements, and instructions of this assignment
• I have completed this assignment independently unless explicitly instructed otherwise
• There is no section or component of my assignment that I do not understand
• I have kept research notes and other documentation regarding all of my sources of information and ideas
• My direct quotations have quotation marks, a full and correct citation, and a corresponding reference
• All ideas and work used from other sources have the necessary in-text citations and references
• Every item on my reference list has been cited in my assignment
• Every idea/quote that I have used in my assignment has a corresponding entry in my reference list
• Apart from direct quotes, everything else in my assignment consists of my own words
• In paraphrasing work from others, I put the complete idea into my own words and did not just change a few words or rearrange the sentence

Adapted from York University's Academic Integrity Assignment Checklist Creative Commons License

An initiative which tracks and blocks websites offering contract cheating and plagiarism services revealed that many Assiniboine students use "paraphrasing tools" to plagiarize.

Paraphrasing tool websites present themselves as harmless, time-saving platforms which help students avoid plagiarism by “paraphrasing” text. What these websites in fact do is neither harmless nor useful. Using these websites:

• prevents students from learning how to paraphrase properly
• generates awkwardly worded passages which are easy for instructors to recognize as having come from these sites
• produces plagiarized text which is simply the poorly rewritten words of another without citation

Students who use these sites may face sanctions for plagiarism as part of Policy A25.