Pioneer Humanities: Standards of Academic Ethics

The Humanities team wants all students to adhere to high standards of academic ethics specified in the following policies and definitions.

Plagiarizing is a form of cheating whereby you pass off someone else’s work—thinking or writing—as your own.

It is cheating if you:

• Read another student’s paper during a test
• Use books or notes when they are forbidden’
• Write a paper out in advance when only notes are allowed
• Obtain in advance, copies of the test to study
• Let someone copy from your tests or papers.

It is a form of cheating to be absent from class because you are unprepared on the day major assignments are due. Students in school for any reason the day tests or assignments are due must fulfill those requirements that day. Assignments are due even if you are excused from the period during which a particular class meets. Students in school but who fail to turn in assignments or take tests will be given zeros on those assignments.

It is not cheating if you:

• Study together for a test or if you share each other’s notes for study purposes

It is plagiarism if you:

• Copy or paraphrase ideas from another source without proper citation, either from another student’s paper or from a published book or article
• Mislead your reader not only about the source of specific phrases or sentences, but also about ideas and interpretations.

It is not plagiarism if you:

• Quote the source of your words and acknowledge, in a footnote, the source of your quotation.

• Indicate in a footnote, or within the body of your paper, the source of an idea you are discussing.

Consequences of cheating and plagiarism are at least a zero on the assignment or test in question and involvement of parents and administrators. Repeated offences could result in failure in the course.

In cases of extreme emergency, please talk with your teachers.