Frequently Asked Questions
What is plagiarism?
Simply put, plagiarism is the use of another's original words or ideas as though they were your own. Any time you borrow from an original source and do not give proper credit, you have committed plagiarism and violated U.S. copyright laws.
Do I have to cite sources for every fact I use?
No. You do not have to cite sources for facts that are not the result of unique individual research. Facts that are readily available from numerous sources and generally known to the public are considered “common knowledge.” You can use these facts liberally in your paper without citing authors. If you are unsure whether or not a fact is common knowledge, you should probably cite your source just to be safe.
What will happen if my course instructor suspects that I have submitted work that she/he believes was not my own?
If your faculty instructor believes that you have engaged in any academic dishonesty, whether cheating, plagiarism, or any other act in which you present another’s work as your own, she/he must immediately send the evidence of dishonesty to the Academic Standing Committee (in the person of the Associate Dean of the College and the Associate Dean of Students) for further investigation and adjudication. The instructor is not permitted to grade the work in question until the allegation has been resolved.
You will meet privately with an Associate Dean and have the opportunity to fully describe how you produced the submitted work, including evidence that the work is your own. The investigation will produce one of three outcomes:
· If you admit to the dishonesty, or understand after seeing the faculty-submitted evidence that you have violated Carleton’s academic integrity code (and you do not have a disciplinary record), you can choose to take your uncontested charge to an informal educational hearing with the two Associate Deans and your course instructor.
· If you wish to contest the charge and investigative conclusion, your case will be heard by the full Academic Standing Committee.
· If, on the basis of the investigation the Associate Dean decides not pursue charges, your work will be returned to the instructor for grading.
The informal hearing is designed to help the student fully understand the nature and causes of the dishonesty, and explore strategies for preventing future charges. But the hearing does create a disciplinary record, a letter with the finding and sanction (typically a warning or a period of disciplinary probation) that remains in a separate disciplinary file until graduation. In the past decade, more than 90% of the investigated incidents have been resolved with the informal hearing.
The formal session before the full Academic Standing Committee is designed to provide a student contesting the charge a thorough and fair hearing to determine whether academic dishonesty has occurred, and if so an appropriate sanction. Like the informal hearing, the formal hearing creates a disciplinary record that remains in a separate disciplinary file until graduation.
If your case does not bring charges and is dismissed, the work is returned to your instructor, and a record of the allegation and investigation is placed in your student file until graduation; no disciplinary file or record is created.
What is “fair use”?
The United States government has established rough guidelines for determining the nature and amount of work that may be “borrowed” without explicit written consent.
These are called “fair use” laws, because they try to establish whether certain uses of original material are reasonable. The laws themselves are vague and complicated. Below we have condensed them into some rubrics you can apply to help determine the fairness of any given usage.
- The nature of your use.
- If you have merely copied something, it is unlikely to be considered fair use. But if the material has been transformed in an original way through interpretation, analysis, etc., it is more likely to be considered “fair use.”
- The amount you’ve used.
- The more you’ve “borrowed,” the less likely it is to be considered fair use. What percentage of your work is “borrowed” material? What percentage of the original did you use? The lower the better.
- The effect of your use on the original
- If you are creating a work that competes with the original in its own market, and may do the original author economic harm, any substantial borrowing is unlikely to be considered fair use. The more the content of your work or its target audience differs from that of the original, the better.
If you have questions about fair use, we recommend reviewing Carleton’s “Fair Use” and Copyright laws website:
http://apps.carleton.edu/campus/copyright/fair_use/