Commentary on an Academic Integrity Code

Commentary on an Academic Integrity Code

I am frequently surprised at how many students have the mistaken impression that students may rely on papers found on a website “as a guide” so long as they massage the verbiage enough that no complete sentences are tagged through Turnitin.com or other plagiarism checking service. Often, students’ paraphrases are nearly unintelligible, as well as reproducing distinctive errors in the paper upon which they rely. To illustrate the point, I submit the following commentary.

Student Code of Academic Integrity

University of Phoenix is an academic community whose fundamental mission is the pursuit of intellectual growth. Achievement of this mission is dependent upon the development of autonomous thought and respect for the ideas of others. Academic dishonesty threatens the integrity of individual students as well as the University’s academic community. By virtue of membership in the University’s academic community, students accept a responsibility to abide by this Student Code of Academic Integrity, which is a part of the Student Code of Conduct.

I might paraphrase the above as follows:

This school is a small town that mainly chases the growing of intellect. Mission accomplished happens when thinking independently, furthermore showing respect. Cheating is a threat to both students and the University. The morality of joining a university demands that students follow a Pupil’s Code of Behavior.

Academic integrity violations include all forms of academic dishonesty, including but not limited to:

a.  Plagiarism – Intentional or unintentional representation of another’s words or ideas as one’s own in an academic exercise.

Students should not copy verbatim or violate copyright.

Examples of plagiarism include but are not limited to:

●   The exact copy of information from a source without proper citation and without use of quotation marks or block quotation formatting. If any words...