Academic Integrity
Learning Modules

Module 2: How do I maintain academic integrity?

2.1 What is considered a breach of academic integrity

According to the UOIT Academic Calendar, academic misconduct is any unreasonable infringement on the freedom of other members of the academic community. It includes:

• Violation of safety regulations in a laboratory or other setting.
• Disruptions of classes and/or examinations;
• Cheating on examinations, assignments, reports, or other work used to evaluate student performance;
• Copying from another student's work or allowing one's own work to be copied;
• Submitting another person's work as one's own;
• Submission of sufficiently similar documents for different courses without the instructors' consent;
• Fabrication of data;
• Consultation with an unauthorized person during an examination, or use of unauthorized aids;
• Impersonating another student or allowing oneself to be impersonated for purposes of taking examinations, or carrying out laboratory or other assignments.
• Plagiarism, which is the act of presenting the ideas, words, or other intellectual property of another as one's own.
• Obtaining by improper means examination papers, tests, or similar materials; use or distribution of such materials to others.
• Falsifying academic records, including tests and examinations, or submitting false credentials for purpose of gaining admission to a program or course, or for any other purpose.
• Misrepresentation of facts, whether written or oral, which may have an effect on academic evaluation. This includes making fraudulent health claims, obtaining medical or other certificates under false pretenses, or altering certificates for the purposes of misrepresentation.
• Submission of work when a major portion has been previously submitted or is being submitted for another course, without the express permission of all instructors
• Copying or selling all or parts of a textbook.

2.2 What are citations and references?

You maintain academic integrity by being diligent about understanding and following the rules about citations and references, working individually, being well-organized with good time management, and avoiding the temptation to cheat. In essay or report-style assignments, this includes using citations and references that follow an approved style guide. ALWAYS check with each instructor about what style to use.

I'm still kind of confused about what I should actually do when I'm writing assignments. Like, what's the difference between in-text citations and references?

Basically, in-text citations are placed within the body of your essay and allow authors to give immediate credit to the original source of a piece of information that they are using in their paper. That way there is no confusion as to which ideas in a paper are original and which are not, as well as where each referenced idea came from. In-text citations need to be clear but brief, so as to not interrupt the flow of a paper, so they typically contain the most important identifying information for a source, such as author's name, date of publication and/or page number of the document where the piece of information in its original form can be found. Since in-text citations do not contain all of the source's bibliographic information like its title, publisher, the journal in which it was published, etc., a reference at the end of the paper must be included to provide this information. The in-text citation gives credit to the source at the point the information was used and it acts as a tag that helps the reader identify the source in the references list at the end of a paper. Essentially, the in-text citation is a short form of the full reference and the full reference is placed at the end of the essay or report. Both the in-text citations and reference list are formatted following one style manual (as assigned by your instructor).

Remember - there are multiple citation and referencing styles, so always check with your instructor as to which style is to be used for each assignment. For example, some citation styles use footnotes or endnotes that place numbers within the main text of the paper which correspond to a list of the author's sources at the bottom of each page or at the end of the paper to give credit to sources. Others have the author's last name and year of publication inside parentheses.

A full reference list is placed at the end of the paper and includes all of the source's relevant, identifying information so that the source can be found easily.

What are citation styles? And what information do I need to include in them and in what order?

Different fields use a different citation style. Each citation or formatting style (for example, APA (American Psychological Association), IEEE (Institute of Electtrical and Electronics Engineer), MLA (Modern Language Association), CSE (Council of Science Editors) and McGill) has a different group of guidelines for how you should present your work and document the sources that you used in your work.  

Although all styles include common information (such as author's name, article or book title, journal name in which the article appeared, date of publication), there are differences in the order in which the information is given and how it is formatted in your citation and in your reference list. In addition, each style will have different requirements as to how essays and reports are formatted (such as, location of page number, what is included on a title page, whether or not an abstract is required, if a running head is needed, and so on). Remember, courses in science, psychology, engineering, business, health science, legal studies, communication, and so on, will all follow a different style.

2.3 How do I know what style manual to use?

 Even within the same program, different professors might ask you to use different citation styles, so it's very important that you always ask your professors at the beginning of the semester what citation/formatting style they want you to use for assignments.

Are there differences between different formats?

Good question! Different citation and referencing styles are used in different university programs and courses. If you are writing an essay in a social science class, you will probably use APA (American Psychological Association) or MLA (Modern Languages Association). If you're taking an engineering course, you will likely use IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) or CSE (Council of Science Editors).  

APA and IEEE both require in-text citations and a list of references at the end of your work. The main difference between the two is that IEEE uses a numbered citing style and APA does not.

2.4 What does it mean to paraphrase someone else's words, ideas and research?

Being able to paraphrase well is key to good writing. Paraphrasing and analyzing other people's research demonstrates your knowledge and ability much better than quoting phrases and passages. While paraphrasing is trickier than directly quoting a source, you will have to do it more often in order to show that you understand the source material you are using in your work.

How is paraphrasing different from just restating what an author is saying using a few different words?

When you paraphrase, you can't just switch a few words and slightly alter the sentence order or structure of the original passages; at the same time, however, you must ensure that you are still stating the correct meaning of the original research.

EXAMPLE: If this is the original passage:

"With the ever-increasing availability and accessibility of the Internet, students are able to access a multitude of resources in support of their studies. However, this has also led to an increase in their ability to cheat through plagiarizing text and claiming it as their own. Increased pressures of balancing work and study have contributed to this rise. Not only confined to the student population, some academics are also guilty of engaging in this practice providing a less than favorable role model for their students" (Kenny, 2006, p. 14).

This would be an example of a correct paraphrase of the passage:

The internet is an important learning tool, but it can also make available more opportunities for committing plagiarism, especially when students are under a lot of pressure or if they have academically dishonest peers and professors (Kenny, 2006, p.14).

NOTE: You don't need to paraphrase every sentence. A paraphrase should include a summarized version of the ideas you think are most important, written in your own words.

In order for a paraphrase to not be considered plagiarism, you still have to include an in-text citation and a full reference for your source at the end of your paper. For example: Kenny, D. (2006). Student plagiarism and professional practice. Nurse Education Today, 27. 14-18.

The following would be considered inadequate paraphrasing:

Minor changes are highlighted in purple; original wording is highlighted in green.

With the all-encompassing accessibility and availability of the Internet, students are able to access a multitude of resources for their studies. This has also led to an increase in their ability to cheat by plagiarising text and claiming it as their own work. Not only students but some academics are also guilty of engaging in plagiarism and being bad role models for their students. Increased pressures of work and study have caused this (Kenny, 206, p. 14).

Changing only a few words a phrases, as in this example, would be considered plagiarism. Even though the two examples contain the same information and a citation, in the second example passages are copied from the original source without any attempt to indicate that they are direct quotes. Instead, only some words are changed and some sentences are rearranged, while the sentence structure and wording of the original text is too closely followed to be considered to be in the student's own words.

2.5 What does it mean to directly quote someone else's research?

Direct quotations are when you keep the exact wording of the original source and place those words inside quotation marks. How you format a quote depends on the citation style you're using, as well as the length and context of the quote. You must always provide an in-text citation (or footnote/endnote) and a reference. Good writing will use very few quotations.

2.6 How do I show what are my ideas and someone else's ideas?

To show someone else's ideas, you must always provide a citation for every piece of information you use that is not an idea from your own head or considered to be common knowledge.

You can signal to your reader that you are using information from someone else by using the author's last name in the sentence in which you paraphrase that person's ideas.

For example: Smith (2006) states that ....

There are many other ways of signalling to the reader that you are using someone else's ideas.

For example: While Smith (2006) argues that ..., Tait (2013) believes that .... In contrast to both these researchers, I argue that ....

To indicate something is your own idea, use "I" (if your professor allows first-person in assignment). Avoid using "we" or "us" unless you are working as a group. 

NOTE: you always need to include an in-text citation, as well as a complete reference in the reference list. 

For more ideas on how to integrate your ideas with secondary source research, see:

Graff, Gerald and Cathy Birkenstein. (2010). They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. Second Edition. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 978-0-393-93361-1

2.7 Is it OK to work with a study group?

It's ok to work with a group to study the core concepts of your course, but if an assignment requires you to use your own original ideas and analysis, you shouldn't rely on others to do this work for you and take away the opportunity to develop and demonstrate your own, unique ideas and abilities. The assignments and homework are ways of measuring how much you understood from the material taught in the course.

It also depends on your professor's expectations for the assignment. If she considers it to be an individual assignment, then it would be academically dishonest to work as a group to complete any part of it. If the academic work assigned is for individual effort, then you should be working on it alone. If group work is allowed, you can work with a study group.

2.8 Are there any other rules about completing homework and assignments?

Generally, you can work with a study group to discuss homework and assignments, but they must all be completed individually. Beyond the question of cheating, if you are not doing your own homework, you are not learning the content and will not be prepared for tests and exams.

2.9 Is it possible to self-plagiarise?

If you're using material from your own old pieces of writing, you need to cite yourself. Not doing so is considered self-plagiarism.

However, when you are writing for school assignments, you are always required to create new work for each course you take. The only time you can reuse your own work in assignments is if you have permission to do so. For example, if you are writing a graduate thesis, you may be able to use essays written in your graduate courses as sections of your thesis (if appropriate).

Professors and academic researchers also need to follow these rules. For example, if an author writes a book on a topic in which she has previously worked and published, she would cite her previously published papers.

2.10 Do I have to cite common knowledge?

Usually, you do not need to cite common knowledge, but you need to be careful. Common knowledge is information your readers should already know, such as major events and common facts. If a piece of information has appeared in at least five credible and easily accessible sources without being cited, it can typically be considered common knowledge; but, when in doubt, cite the information to be on the safe side. Remember also that what is common knowledge in one field (i.e., psychology) may not be common knowledge in another field (i.e., political science).

Module 2 Quiz

INSTRUCTIONS: Answer all the questions and click submit at the end. You can choose to send your grade to your instructor or download your grade and certificate of completion.