Plagiarism Policy

Professor Womersley

Unity College

1. Plagiarism is the use of another’s words and ideas without attribution. It is an academic offense at Unity College, and subject to disciplinary review. It is also highly offensive to professors.

2. I will not read, grade, or correct plagiarized work. On receiving plagiarized work from a student, for the first offense, you will receive a warning and an automatic “F” for the assignment. For the second offense, I will refer you to the college authorities for disciplinary action.

3. Most often, plagiarism is committed through outright duplicity, ignorance, laziness, or a combination of all three. In the case of duplicity, I particularly detest receiving papers that have large passages copied from the Internet with no attribution, and have devised effective methods for discovering when this has been the case. Be warned!

4. To attribute an idea or passage to another person, one uses footnotes, endnotes, or in-text references. In my classes, you may use any of the above methods of attribution, but the system you use should be consistent throughout the paper. Internet documents have authors and places of publication, much as any other document, and you should find out and state who wrote the document. It is not sufficient to cite the “url” or merely give a hyperlink. That does not allow the reader to assess the authority of the author.

5. Internet documents in any case are frequently of poor authority or scholarship. But, on the other hand, some are bona fide academic papers or government documents. Discerning the difference is an essential professional skill. You should start learning right now how to assess the quality of all documentary resources.

6. To learn how to attribute text and ideas according to a particular style, go to your English composition stylebook, the contact pages of academic journals, or come and see me during office hours.