Academic integrity allows students and educators to have the flexibility to develop new ideas while respecting and recognizing the labor of others. It is essential when writing, considering that throughout their studies, students have to submit numerous essays and discussion board posts. These writing materials require research and the use of other people’s work. While it is customary to read and utilize the ideas of others, the failure to provide credit to the author of an idea is a serious problem. Hence, writing with academic integrity must become essential to each student’s approach to completing research and submitting it.
Many universities provide statements about their academic integrity policies, and penalties for failure to adhere to these are severe. Turnitin is one resource that allows students to check if they have unintentionally plagiarized someone else’s idea before submitting the work (“What is the difference…,” n.d.). Additionally, this software allows educators to ensure that their students submit original work with proper referencing. Similar to this, Grammarly offers a plagiarism check tool that also allows ensuring that academic integrity standards have been followed. Another resource that is helpful for students is SafeAssigg, which offers similar plagiarism check services. SafeAssign is a plagiarism protection application that allows educators to verify the uniqueness of homework (“Submit with SafeAssign,” n.d.). SafeAssign performs the check automatically by comparing your assignment to a database of prior assignment submissions.
Paraphrasing is a tool that students can use to avoid plagiarism while providing the ideas of another author and citing them. Paraphrasing is the act of restating another person’s views or ideas, in other words, as opposed to directly repeating them. It is not necessary to use quotation marks, but it is necessary to cite. It is never permissible to paraphrase in order to mislead who is presenting their opinions.
Professional practices and scholarly ethics are linked, as similar to the academic integrity policies, professional organizations do not encourage plagiarism; plagiarizing can cost one their job and professional reputation. This is why it is essential to ensure that both in academic writing and professional practice, one follows the rules that allow for avoiding plagiarism.
References
Submit with SafeAssign.(n.d.). Web.
What is the difference between academic integrity and plagiarism? (n.d.). Web.