Any person who is in academics has to abide by some norms, so that he can carry out the academic work with morality and conscience. By definition, academic integrity stands for the ethical policy or the moral code of the realm of academics. Upholding academic integrity is the responsibility of the students, researchers or academicians.
Any person related to academics has to be honest in his or her approach, and that should reflect in the field of research and academic publishing. The person should also be committed to maintain the paramount academic standards in his or her work. Moreover, these should be vehement avoidance of cheating or plagiarism in the works by the individual.
Thus, academic integrity stands for the way in which a person conducts himself or herself within the domain of academic work. Academic integrity is reflective of personal integrity of the individual as it involves moral code and ethical beliefs.
According to Whitley (2012), the very central ambition of all the academic institutions is to impart and share knowledge among the people of the academic community across the globe. Students who cheat their way to acquire their degree never become knowledgeable. They do not embark upon the path of struggle to reach personal development. Thus, academic dishonesty minimizes the moral capital needed by the society for the purpose of development.
The person needs to acknowledge and respect the principles and behaviors of academics. The person should have the aim to complete his or her work. Documenting the research and citing others’ works is another aspect of academic integrity. One needs to act ethically with all the integrity in the pursuit of studies and research. The person has to be responsible enough for his or her actions in the domain of study. The person should have the mentality to learn from the mistakes that are committed in the course of any work. Thus, one can tread on the path of being a good student or academician, and set a proper example for other people in the domain of work.
A major issue that looms over academic integrity is plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of directly copying or paraphrasing from someone else’s academic work or publication without citing the part properly in the text. This is ethically very wrong, and is comparable to stealth in the domain of academic work. When a person is meant to work on a paper or research, he or she is expected to come up with his or her own thoughts and views. Even if the person is guided by the previous work of some other person in the field of study, it gives him or her no right to quote directly for that work without proper citation. Plagiarism is done when the work, ideas and thoughts of some other person are used as the work of the person who opts to use the same in his or her work. This is one of the greatest unethical acts in academic practice, and is treated with utmost seriousness by people associated with the domain.
If a student is found to have plagiarized from some source, he or she can face severe consequences in the domain of work. The instructors of the student can ask the person for redoing the entire assignment. The person might even be failed in the particular assignment due to plagiarism. Although it is less severe as a consequence, the person might also receive a reduced grade in the course that has the plagiarized work. In some institutions, the instructor might opt to make the person fail in the course with the grade XF that goes on to indicate that he or she was failed owing to academic dishonesty. Also, under such a circumstance, the student cannot complete the graduation until he or she has removed the plagiarized work by a procedure of remediation.
There are three major ways in which a person can incorporate information from various sources in their academic work. These three ways are: the quote, the paraphrase, and the summary.
Quoting from some academic work means that the student or researcher directly takes the lines that are published in the work of some other person, and incorporates the lines in the text of the academic work with proper citation in the text as well as the reference page.
Paraphrasing is the way in which a person restates the meaning of the passage or text of the work of another person in his or her own words. The term paraphrase comes from the Latin expression ‘paraphrasis’ that means expression of additional manner.
In contrast, a summary of someone’s academic work means that the work is mentioned by the student in the form of an account or a brief statement consisting of all the main points of the academic work by the original author. Both paraphrase and summary can be cited by the student in the text, with the source being mentioned in the reference page abiding by the particular style of citation that is needed to be followed by the student.
There are specific styles of citation in academic practice. These mainly include: MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian and Harvard styles. All of the styles of citation have their specific ways of in-text citations and mentioning the sources at the end of the paper.
While the parenthetical citation technique in MLA style requires the name of the author and the page number or line within brackets after the quotation, paraphrase or summary, APA format requires the mention of the author’s name and the page number along with the year of publication of the original work. Likewise, the other styles of citation also have specific ways that need to be followed by a student while working on an academic paper.
According to Whitley (2012), “The effects of failing to address academic dishonesty contribute to a broader problem: the public’s growing lack of confidence in the academy” (p. 6).
Thus, while carrying out any academic work, all these factors need to be kept in mind by the student or the researcher. The proper usage of the rules would help the person in receiving appreciation and success in the field of study. However, if the person does not abide by the academic norms and rules, he or she can expect to be penalized according to the regulations of the academic domain.
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References
Whitley, Jr., Bernard E. (2012). Academic Dishonesty: An Educator's Guide. New York:
Psychology Press.
