In accordance with our mission—to identify and promote high academic standards in high school language arts, community colleges, four-year colleges and universities—we encourage instructors and English programs to include a statement about plagiarism on their website and syllabi. The language in the following statement may be copied directly or adapted to individual programs. We feel that comprehensive plagiarism policies (for faculty and departments) and statements (for syllabi) should include the following pieces of information:
A general statement about academic integrity:
Members of an academic community have both rights and responsibilities. Faculty, students and staff must demonstrate integrity in their work and deed. They must treat others and their ideas with respect and exercise honesty in written and spoken exchange.
A definition of academic dishonesty that covers both intentional plagiarism and sloppy citation
Information about the cultural specificity of plagiarism as an intellectual concept.
Concrete examples of acceptable and unacceptable summarizing, paraphrasing and quoting and suggestions for the prevention of plagiarism.
Information about the particular challenges facing teachers in the era of plagiarism and the internet.