Georgetown Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Information on Academic Integrity
The following information is excerpted and adapted from:
Academic Integrity
Academic communities are held together by bonds of trust stretching across time and space. Meaningful academic freedom depends upon the strength of these bonds. Integrity in research and scholarship is therefore one of the constitutive values of the academy. Academic misconduct in whatever form violates that norm and threatens to erode the basis of our intellectual trust in one another. We are therefore committed to fostering a clear awareness of the requirements of academic integrity through education programs and, when necessary, through investigative and adjudicative responses to alleged violations.
Students in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences are expected to maintain the highest standards of integrity in pursuit of their education. Academic dishonesty in any form is a serious offense against the academic community in general and against Georgetown University in particular. Students found to have violated standards of academic integrity will be subject to academic penalties. These penalties may include, but are not limited to, suspension or dismissal from the University and revocation of degrees already conferred.
Academic integrity is important because:
- You want to show how your ideas relate to others' ideas.
- You want others to trust your research.
- You want to be able to trust others' research.
- You do not want to tarnish your academic record or endanger your academic standing.
Research Misconduct
Research misconduct means plagiarism, fabrication, or falsification in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results.
- (a) Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit.
- (b) Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them.
- (c) Falsification is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.
- (d) Research misconduct does not include honest error or differences of opinion.
(Adapted from the Office of Research Integrity website, August 1, 2007: http://ori.dhhs.gov/misconduct/definition_misconduct.shtml)
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is the act of passing off as one's own the ideas, writings, or statements of another. Plagiarism is a serious breach of academic integrity standards, and anyone who is found to have committed plagiarism will be subject to disciplinary action.
Students are cautioned that the improper use of sources, whether intentional or unintentional, may be plagiarism and are expected to know the proper techniques for documentation. Every quotation from another source, whether written, spoken, or electronic, must be bound by quotation marks and properly cited. Every paraphrase (a recapitulation of another source's statement or idea in one's own words) or summary (a more concise restatement of another's ideas) must be properly cited. A bibliographic entry alone is not sufficient to avoid the imputation of plagiarism; nor is mere citation sufficient when use has been made of another person's words.
Students are responsible for educating themselves about the proper procedures for documentation. Questions about what references need documentation and how attribution should be made may be directed to the course professor or the thesis advisor. Such procedures are also outlined in a number of standard guides, most of which can be found in Lauinger and Dahlgren libraries. However, since methods vary among different disciplines, students should seek guidance from their department or program about proper and improper approaches to scholarly documentation.
There are three simple conventions for when you must provide a reference:
- If you use someone else's ideas, you should cite the source.
- If the way in which you are using the source is unclear, make it clear.
- If you received specific help from someone in writing the paper, acknowledge it.
(From “Acknowledging the Work of Others", used by permission of Cornell University)
It is important to carefully document all of your sources because:
- You must give credit to those whose work you have used.
- You avoid the possibility of being accused of plagiarism.
- You can retrace your research steps should you choose to perform additional research at a later time.
- You can join the scholarly conversation by tracing your development as a dialogue between you and other scholars.
The following are examples of plagiarism:
- Taking information word-for-word from a book, article, speech, the Web, or another source without providing proper attribution to the originator of the information.
- Quoting word-for-word from a source without quotation marks but including a footnote at the end of the material.
- Putting an author's distinctive term or phrase in quotation marks without any additional attribution.
- Quoting or paraphrasing your own previously published work without providing proper attribution.
The following may help you avoid committing plagiarism:
- Think about what you are reading, outline an argument that reflects the conclusions you are drawing, and when you flesh out the argument, write mainly in your own words, adding quotations where they are necessary to acknowledge others' thoughts and to present evidence that helps your argument.
- Carefully document all your sources as you conduct your research.
- Avoid "cutting and pasting" quotes directly into your paper from websites.
- Edit your work to make sure that each quotation and paraphrase is clearly marked by quotation marks or an introductory clause, has an in-text reference (footnote, endnote, parenthetical reference, etc.), and has a bibliographic reference.
Other People’s Words
You can use someone's words if you cite the source. If you adopt the vocabulary words and phrases of an author and use them throughout your paper without putting quotation marks around each phrase or key word, you are plagiarizing.
Consider the following passage from Heilbroner, Robert L. An Inquiry into The Human Prospect. New York: W.W.Norton & Company, 1974, page 37:
The race between food and mouths is perhaps the most dramatic and most highly publicized aspect of the population problem, but is not necessarily the most immediately threatening. For the torrent of human growth imposes intolerable social strains on the economically backward regions, as well as hideous costs on their individual citizens. Among these social strains the most frightening is that of urban disorganization. Rapidly increasing populations in the rural areas of technologically static societies create unemployable surpluses of manpower that stream into the cities in search of work. In the underdeveloped world generally, cities are therefore growing at rates that cause them to double in ten years--in some cases in as little as six years. In many such cities unemployment has already reached levels of 25 percent, and it will inevitably rise as the city populace swells. The cesspool of Calcutta thus becomes more and more the image of urban degradation toward which the dynamics of population growth are pushing the poorest lands.
There are a number of characteristic phrases here that say a lot in just a few words: "the race between food and mouths," "the population problem," "torrent of human growth," "urban disorganization," and "cesspool of Calcutta." If you use these phrases in your paper without indicating that Heilbroner wrote them, or just put one reference to Heilbroner at the end of the paper in the bibliography, you are committing plagiarism. (Even using one of these small, characteristic phrases without quotation marks is considered plagiarism.) For example, if you wrote something like this:
The cesspool of Calcutta is a good example of a city where urban disorganization is being threatened because of a rapidly increasing population. These cities are technologically static, economically backward, and impose intolerable social strains and hideous costs on their individual citizens.
and put no reference to Heilbroner, it would certainly be plagiarism. If you put one reference to Heilbroner in the bibliography, it would still be plagiarism, because your citation was too vague.
What Is a Paraphrase?
Paraphrase is stating someone else's ideas in your own words. You must cite the source of something when you are writing, even for paraphrase.
Imagine that I were to paraphrase the Heilbroner passage above:
The population problem manifests itself not only in hunger, but also in the specter of urban breakdown that arises from large population growth. Unemployed people pour into depressed cities such as Calcutta, stretching both the cities and the people to the breaking point as they fail to find work. As population growth continues at a rapid pace, such places will become the very image of third-world debasement.
This passage must end with a citation of Heilbroner. I have captured all of the main ideas in his paragraph. Although I have used "my own" words--for example, substituting the idea of "pouring" into a city rather than "streaming" into it, and substituting the word "debasement" for "degradation"--my argument tracks along with his. I am making the same argument. The fact that I changed some words and eliminated others does not mean that this is my own work.
This example illustrates a dangerous trap for the naive or not so naive. If you were to take the Heilbroner passage into a word processor, carefully edit out some words, rearrange the order of some others, and then use the thesaurus function to look up some good synonyms for other words, you might arrive at a passage like the one above. You may think you are writing, but you are actually assembling. Even with a passage that has been "sanitized" in this way, where the resemblance to the original comes only in the similarity of the arguments, you still must cite the original work.
Material From the Internet
According to the April 3rd, 1998 issue of Science, there were then as many as 350,000,000 pages on Internet, and with the process of putting everything in libraries in digital form well on its way, the digital accessibility of virtually any text will become a reality in the not-too-distant future. This means that the temptation to start with someone else's words in a word processor and massage them into a paper will become greater and greater.
If you do cut and paste text, make sure each passage is properly cited. Do the citation work at the time of writing instead of leaving it for the end. If you are doing a lot of cutting and pasting, chances are you are not writing a very good paper.
Citation
If you are using a word-for-word, literal quotation, you have to put the passage you are quoting in quotation marks. If it is a long passage--more than three lines of text in your paper--you should start a new line and indent, putting the citation at the end of the paragraph. Only these two mechanisms are acceptable for indicating quoted material. If you leave out the quotation marks, you can be accused of a violation of academic integrity.
There are several systems for citing, or giving reference to, the ideas of others. Some professors want you to use a specific system. Others don't care which you use, as long as you are consistent. All professors want you to present complete information. For example, if you are citing the Heilbroner passage, you should give the author's name, the name of the book, the publisher, the date and place of publication, and the page number of the quotation. The whole reference allows the reader to track it down and see what it says for him or herself.
When citing web pages, try to reference the TITLE of the page at the top of the document (or perhaps at the topic of your browser window), the URL of the page (its location on the web), the AUTHOR of the page if you can find one (or an organization if it appears that an organization wrote the page), the TITLE and DATE of the broader work if you can discern it, and the date on which you visited the web page. For example, if today were July 27, 2007, you might cite the webpage this material was drawn from as:
Note the full citation when you collect materials from a website; do not just copy the URL and expect to return for citation information. If the web page disappears before you gather full citation information, you cannot use that material without committing plagiarism. It may be a good idea to download important pages to your computer (perhaps using use the URL as part of the file name), keeping them in a folder associated with the paper, or doing printouts of certain pages and keeping them.
Collaboration
Defining the limits of acceptable collaboration can be difficult. You should never make any assumptions about whether you are allowed to collaborate. You should always assume that the answer is no, and then carefully read the assignment and syllabus, listen to what the professor says, and ask if you are unclear. It is your responsibility to know what is acceptable collaboration. When you collaborate, you must give proper credit.
Cultural Differences
Different cultures may have different norms for citing texts and collaborating. The simple and direct solution is the old adage "When in Rome, do as the Romans do." If you came from a country where the definitions of plagiarism are different, then you must learn how and when to cite sources here. Any professor will be happy to help you do it. If you are in doubt, ask. If you need more help, ask the professor if he or she has any objection to your getting help at The Writing Center, and take advantage of it.
(The pamphlet Acknowledging the Work of Others was prepared by the Office of the Dean of Faculty, Cornell University, August 1993. Passages have been quoted with permission granted to Georgetown University.)
Fabrication and Falsification
Fabrication involves the invention of results of experiments, empirical studies or other forms of data that are the bases of scientific research. Why this is academic dishonesty and why it violates the most basic standards of research integrity are too obvious to require further comment.
Falsification involves manipulating research materials, equipment or processes, or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented. While the data that serve as the bases of falsified studies may be real, the analyses are conducted or the results reported in ways that make the work academically dishonest and scientifically valueless. Falsified studies cannot be replicated by investigators doing honest research. The falsification of results therefore insults the efforts and wastes the time of colleagues and misdirects or retards the advancement of knowledge.
Examples of Fabrication or Falsification
- Misrepresenting the experimental or analytic steps taken to produce a given result.
- Manipulating experimental conditions in ways that compromise the validity of the findings.
- Transposing the results of one study onto a second.
- Failing to disclose data or experimental outcomes that would call the validity of the results into question.
- Manipulating computer images to distort experimental or analytics results.
- Fabricating survey responses or test results.
More detailed examples can be found in actual case reports that are publicly available on the web site of the Department of Health and Human Services’s Office of Research Integrity:
http://ori.dhhs.gov/misconduct/cases/
Avoiding Charges of Falsification
- Experimental steps should be fully and honestly disclosed in all working papers, publications, proposals, presentations, and grant applications.
- Data or results that challenge or qualify findings should be fully disclosed and objectively assessed.
- In general, the question, “Is this study being conducted and reported in ways that will allow honest attempts at replication?” should always be able to be answered in the affirmative.
Other Infringements of Academic Integrity
Academic integrity may also be violated by acts of cheating, fabrication, or facilitating academic dishonesty. Cheating is the use or attempted use of unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in in-class examinations, take-home examinations, or other academic exercises. Fabrication is the falsification or invention of data, research results, citations, or any other information used in examinations, papers, experiments, or other academic exercises. Facilitating academic dishonesty is the assistance or attempted assistance of another to commit an act of academic dishonesty.
It is a violation of academic integrity to misrepresent or misuse otherwise valid academic work. For example, a paper submitted to satisfy the requirements for one course may not be submitted to satisfy a requirement for a second course without explicit permission of both professors. Students participating in joint projects or collaborative exercises are expected to make themselves aware of and to adhere to their instructor's expectations for individual contributions.
It is also a violation of academic integrity to attempt to deprive other students of equal access to educational resources, whether tangible (e.g., library or laboratory materials) or intangible (e.g., computer access to electronic resources ).
Responsible Conduct of Research involving Human Subjects and Animals
Though not falling strictly under the category of academic integrity, careful attention to the conditions under which research projects on human subjects and research projects involving animal experimentation are conducted is essential to the responsible conduct of research. Both federal law and university regulations require the institution and its faculty, students and staff to adhere to established guidelines and to follow established procedures for securing approval when human subjects or animals are involved in research. Information on both standards and procedures is available at:
Enforcement of Academic Integrity
Reporting allegations of academic misconduct
Anyone who has reason to believe that a graduate student has engaged in academic misconduct is urged to report such information in writing, along with any supporting evidence, to the Dean of the Graduate School. Allegations of academic misconduct may be brought to the Dean’s attention at any time in the student’s academic career, even after the student’s graduation, regardless of when the alleged incident occurred.
Sanctions
Sanctions that may be imposed directly by the Dean of the Graduate School may include but are not limited to a reduced or failing grade, suspension or dismissal from the University, and revocation of degrees already granted. The Dean’s letter imposing penalties for academic misconduct will become part of the student’s permanent file.
Regardless of the sanctions that may be recommended by the Adjudication Committee and/or imposed by the Dean, if a student is found to have violated academic integrity in a graded activity, the faculty member involved may fail or reduce the student's grade, for either an assignment or for the entire course, at his or her discretion.
