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An intellectual community such as Wabash requires the highest standards of academic honesty. For this reason, the faculty has defined the operation of the rule of conduct in instances of demonstrated academic dishonesty. The penalty for a first offense is decided by the professor involved in consultation with the Dean of Students. The penalty for the second offense is expulsion from the College. Student appeals of determinations of academic dishonesty or plagiarism may be made to the President of the College.
Acts of academic dishonesty may be divided into two broad categories: cheating and plagiarism. It should be noted that cheating may extend to homework and lab assignments as well as to exams. At Wabash, we define cheating in three principal ways: copying from other students or from written materials (for example, crib sheets); providing or receiving unauthorized assistance to or from another student; and collaborating on take-home assignments without the instructor's authorization.
Plagiarism may seem at first glance to be less serious than cheating, but is in fact a special kind of cheating. The word itself derives from the Latin plagum meaning kidnapping. The plagiarist “kidnaps” or steals another person's ideas and falsely presents them as his/her own. There are three common kinds of plagiarism. One is to use the exact language of someone else without putting this quoted material in quotation marks and giving its source. This first kind of plagiarism can be easily avoided: when a writer uses the exact words of another writer or speaker, he must put these words in quotation marks and give their source.
A second kind of plagiarism occurs when a writer presents, as his own, the sequence of ideas or the arrangement of material of someone else, even though he expresses it in his own words. The language may be his, but he is presenting and taking credit for another person's work. This second kind of plagiarism can also be avoided: when a writer is indebted to another writer for ideas, he must give appropriate acknowledgement in parentheses or a footnote.
Finally, and most blatantly, plagiarism occurs when a writer submits a paper written by another as his own.
All three kinds of plagiarism are serious forms of academic dishonesty.