POLICY STATEMENT ON PLAGIARISM

Adopted October, 1992 and revised October, 1997

The Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders has formulated the following policy statement on plagiarism so that:

(1) questions as to what constitutes plagiarism will be minimized,

(2) penalties will be specific in advance, and

(3) all students will be treated fairly and equally.

The intent is to clarify and express the seriousness of the acts and consequences of plagiarism. Our goal is to share this policy statement with all students taking courses within the Department of Special Education and Communication Disorders. Any student who has further questions should consult one of the faculty.

To plagiarize means to take, in effect steal, the words or ideas of someone else and to present them as your own work. After gathering information, students should rephrase what they have learned into their own words and provide appropriate citations. Generally, if the material read has been understood, it is relatively easy to do this. When it is necessary to quote directly, additional documentation is necessary in order to give the appropriate style manual (APA). For APA, this means, depending on the length of the quote, either (1) using quotation marks and citing author(s), year, and page number, or (2) indenting and citing author(s), year, and page number. This must be done in order to avoid plagiarism.

Plagiarism can carry stiff penalties not only during your time as a students of this university, but also throughout your life. The following example is intended to help you avoid plagiarism and its consequences:

"The literature is replete with references to the detrimental effect that speech disorders may have on an individual. However, to date there has been little research to substantiate these allegations. The majority of the studies conducted have explored the attitudes of teachers toward children with speech-language disorders whom they have or have had in their classrooms. The purpose of this study was to further examine attitudes of two groups of subjects toward children with and without articulatory errors. First, the attitudes of peers were deemed important. There has been little research in this area."

"The research that has been conducted occurred primarily in the 1950s prior to the use of computers; therefore, attempts to test the statistical significance of the data were made in only one study. Furthermore, since the children with speech disorders and the peers knew each other in these studies, confounding variables, such as personality, teacher interactions with the children with speech disorders, and socioeconomic status, may have influenced the results of the studies. Second, the attitudes of this teacher-in-training population should be important in setting goals and objectives for introductory speech, language, and hearing courses that are offered to education majors. (Crowe, 1987, p. 97-98)."

Although it has frequently been said that speech problems may negatively affect an individual, not much current, well-controlled research has been conducted regarding this problem (Crowe, 1987). The purpose of this study was twofold (Crowe, 1987). First, attitudes of children toward peers who exhibited articulatory errors versus normal articulation were explored.

To date, there has been little research to substantiate references to the detrimental effect that speech disorders may have on an individual (Crowe, 1987). The purpose of this study was to examine attitudes of two groups of subjects toward children with and without articulatory errors. First, the attitudes of peers were deemed important. Second, the attitudes of teacher-in-training were considered important (Crowe, 1987).

NOTE: In the plagiarized example, even the first sentence is plagiarized. Although it is not word for word and combines two sentences from the original, the words are those of the original author. The standard citation, e.g., (Crowe, 1987), is not sufficient when direct quotations are made.

The Student Handbook cites that considerable confusion has been experienced in plagiarism. Under the normal process, this violation of Section A of the Student Conduct code is handled academically (between the student and concerned professor). The most severe action that may be administered by a professor in a course is a grade of "F" in that particular course. It is pointed out that this is an academic, not a disciplinary, action.

If the decision is that the student has plagiarized, then the following will occur:

(1) The professor and faculty advisor will hold a conference with the student. A concern form will be filled out. The professor, faculty advisor, and the student will sign this form.

The original form will be placed in the student’s folder and a copy will be given to the student.

(2) The appropriate penalty will be imposed as follows: