Practicing Academic Integrity and Avoiding Plagiarism: Guide

Academic integrity is one of the cornerstone values of the University of Idaho. The University of Idaho has specific expectations described in the Student Code of Conduct. Practicing academic honesty and integrity in your writing and research involves making every effort to acknowledge your sources fully and appropriately. This guide offers resources for ethical use of source materials in your writing.
Image from University of Wisconsin- Green Bay Cofrin Library

In research papers, you must use your own ideas while referring to work that's been done by others.Confusion about how to integrate sources can lead to accidental plagiarism. Know the facts!

When you research a topic you may use information from articles, books, or the Web to support your ideas. Practicing academic integrity in your writing means that you give credit to the original authors of these sources by citing them.

To cite means that you state where you found the information so that others can find the exact item again. In this way we build upon the ideas and knowledge of other people.

Citing the sources of the ideas or texts in your research paper:

• Gives credit to authors for their ideas.
• Leads your readers to the sources you consulted – a trail to your research. Shows know how you reached the conclusions in your paper.
• Shows the depth and scope of your research.

Always cite your source when you:

• Use another person’s idea, opinion.
• Refer to information that is not considered common knowledge. (Means facts that are generally known by most people.)
• Use another person’s actual words. (Called a direct quote)
• Paraphrase another person’s spoken or written words.

This video, released under Creative Commons license from Ohio University's Alden Library, discusses the importance of citing your sources in your research.

This brief video from the International Center for Academic Integrity features ICAI conference guests discussing the importance of academic integrity. The video is released under Creative Commons license.