See Also: How to Avoid Plagiarism
See Also: OWL's (UVU's Online Writing Lab) handout - Avoiding Plagiarism (pdf)

Plagiarism is considered unacceptable at American institutes of higher learning, and is specifically prohibited by the Department of English and Literature of Utah Valley University. Although the prohibition of plagiarism is context-specific--it has not always, or in all forms, been banned, and is regarded with various degrees of acceptance among the world's cultures--as a practice it is incompatible with the educational mission of Utah Valley University and of the Department of English and Literature. Because the practice of transmitting, shaping, and learning to command knowledge is integral to the learning process at UVU, plagiarism is never acceptable and always carries consequences, as outlined below. Furthermore, all students are expected to be familiar, at a functional level, with the rules for avoiding plagiarism.

Definitions

Plagiarism may be intentional or unintentional. Unintentional plagiarism, or incidental use of another's ideas or words without proper attribution, arises from a lack of understanding of the rules of citation and quotation. Depending on the nature and length of the assignment, it might amount to a few copied words, but certainly not more than a few sentences. While unintentionally plagiarized work should never be accepted for credit and must be revised, instructors will deal with it as an educational issue. This policy primarily addresses the matter of intentional plagiarism, or academic fraud, defined as follows.

One commits intentional plagiarism (academic fraud) when one does any one of the following:

A. represents as one's own the work or knowledge of another person, regardless of the form in which that work or knowledge had originally appeared (e.g. in the form of a book, article, essay, lecture, web site, speech, photograph, chart, graphic, or any other form);

B. incorporates into one's work the words or ideas of another person without clear attribution that appears at the point the words or ideas have been incorporated, to an extent substantial enough that the origin of the words or ideas has been misrepresented;

C. fails to acknowledge clearly the partial or full authorship of someone else when submitting work;

D. consistently fails to cite or quote textual resources properly, despite the instructor's attempts at educational intervention.

A person who knowingly allows his or her work to be copied, or submitted by another student as course work without the work's proper authorship clearly identified, is an accomplice to plagiarism, and the sanctions outlined below, as relevant, will be applied to this person as well.

Sanctions

Unintentional plagiarism: As noted above, unintentional plagiarism is to be regarded as an educational matter. No plagiarized work, whether intentional or not, may be counted toward a passing grade; however, in the case of unintentional plagiarism, the student should normally be allowed to revise or rewrite the work, correcting all plagiarism problems in consultation with the instructor. The instructor should impose clear guidelines (including a deadline) for any rewritten or revised material in such a case.

Intentional plagiarism: If the instructor suspects that material submitted for evaluation in a course (including work presented orally and draft work not yet submitted for a final grade) is not the student's own work, the instructor should speak to the student about these concerns. Any student submitting work should be able to identify all textual resources used as references in producing academic work, and to produce these resources within a reasonable time upon request. Furthermore, the student should have sufficient command of the ideas contained within the work that he/she is able, with reasonable accuracy, to summarize its content and describe the process by which he/she created the work. If the student is unable to satisfactorily address the instructor's concerns, in the absence of documented evidence the instructor should develop a written contract requiring the student to rewrite the essay. In the contract, the instructor should communicate clear guidelines to the student, including the deadline for the rewritten paper. The instructor may ask the student to select a new topic if the plagiarism concerns cannot be addressed by mere revision of the original work. The contract should be signed by both the student and the instructor, and retained by the instructor in his/her records.

In any case of suspected plagiarism, the instructor should collect evidence of intentional plagiarism before proceeding with any disciplinary measures beyond those outlined above. A document (such as a student paper, web page, or published article or book) that closely resembles a student's submitted academic work is sufficient evidence to proceed with the disciplinary process described below.

If evidence shows that intentional plagiarism, as defined above, has occurred, the following sanctions shall be imposed:

1. The academic work shall receive a failing grade;


2. The student will fail the course, or may elect to drop the course if the last day to drop a course has not yet passed, provided that the instructor's syllabus for the course conveys that intentional plagiarism will result in a failing course grade;


3. A written summary of the infraction of this policy, with copies of the relevant evidence, shall be submitted to the Office of the Dean of Student Services to document a violation of the Student Code of Utah Valley University, as outlined in "Student Rights and Responsibilities". This documentation shall also be provided to the student, and constitutes both a warning and a reprimand to the student as described in Section M, "Sanctions," of "Student Rights and Responsibilities" (Article IV, Section M in the print version).

The policy and sanctions outlined above are intended to supplement the policy of Utah Valley University, as outlined in "Student Rights and Responsibilities," and should not be construed as replacing or altering the policy of the University. Students and instructors are to understand that Utah Valley University may impose sanctions beyond those outlined by the policy of the Department of English and Literature. Documentation of intentional plagiarism presented by faculty members of the Department of English and Literature is submitted, in part, with the intent of helping the University track repeat violators of the policy. Students' rights to grievance procedures, as outlined in "Student Rights and Responsibilities", are in no way amended by the policy of the Department of English and Literature.