Academic Honesty Statement

Statement on Academic Honesty

The Political Science Department considers academic integrity to be vital to the educational enterprise. As noted in the College's Policy on Academic Honesty, it is the responsibility of every student to understand the proper methods of using and quoting from source materials, and to take credit only for work that he or she has completed through his or her own individual efforts. The complete text of the policy can be found at www.holycross.edu/catalog/academic-honesty-policy.pdf. Students are urged to read the policy carefully.

Why is academic honesty so important?

Education is a cooperative endeavor that depends on trust between teachers and students. When students act dishonestly in the completion of assignments or tests, they violate this trust, damaging the College's ability to carry out its educational mission. For this reason, each act of academic dishonesty is an offense against the entire College community.

Academic dishonesty is not just unethical; it is self-defeating. The principal value of a liberal arts education is that it enables students to strengthen their skills of thinking and self-expression. These skills are developed through the active learning involved in completing assignments, writing papers, and preparing for exams. When students evade academic requirements through cheating or plagiarism, they deny themselves the benefits of the college education in which they have invested so much.

Penalties for academic dishonesty

Holy Cross enforces serious penalties for incidents of academic dishonesty. In addition to grade penalties that may be imposed by instructors, all incidents of dishonesty reported to the class deans carry automatic administrative penalties. For the first confirmed incident, a student faces a penalty of one year's academic probation. Any further confirmed incidents result in the student's suspension or dismissal from the College.

Guidelines for avoiding inadvertent plagiarism

Academic dishonesty can occur even in the absence of a conscious intent to cheat. This commonly takes place when students plagiarize though carelessness, or because they do not fully understand the rules for the proper use of sources. The penalties for dishonesty apply equally to intentional and unintentional incidents, so it is essential that students take care to avoid plagiarizing inadvertently. Be sure to provide source citations, such as footnotes or parenthetical citations, for materials you draw on when completing assignments. Also, be sure to use quotation marks to distinguish your own words from those written by someone else.

Illustrations of Proper and Improper Citation