Higher Education Understanding Academic Integrity

UNDERSTANDING INTEGRITY

Understanding Academic Integrity

It is important to avoid plagiarism and give actual credit to the source or authors who wrote the real information for academic integrity. For example, for integration of such information and to show that it is not plagiarized, it needs to be cited with specific referencing styles such as APA, MLA, Harvard, etc. The information could be quoted, summarized, or paraphrased with relevant factors to form a connection with your argument and even for opposing it.

The negative consequences of plagiarism would be loss of authenticity of the academic work, trust from the instructor, and entire integrity when it becomes obvious that you are cheating. Taking some sections of other people’s work and including them in your own without giving them credit would cause problems for copying. In some legal and governmental documents, it could also lead to serious repercussions. It mainly represents a person’s carelessness in reproducing someone else’s work and taking credit for it, although it could be out of ill intent as well.

At work, plagiarism could be avoided by not copying a colleague’s ideas and presenting them as your own. It could become a criminal activity as it could be tried in court under copyright infringement laws, violation of trademark, or fraud. It could be a crucial breach of the rights as ethics and morals would be challenged. A company’s image could be at risk with such acts of one person as he would be copying ideas from blogs of his other collages, for instance, resulting in professional plagiarism. Citing other people’s pictures, blog posts, posts, promotional materials, architectural or technical work, drawings, illustrations, or manuals without permission could be considered workplace plagiarism that directly affects authenticity. To avoid being in such a situation, various online tools could detect plagiarism and ask the person whose work is to be used at the workplace.