Practicing Academic Integrity

What can you do to practice Academic Integrity?

Post-Secondary education can present many challenges for students. Whether it's many deadlines popping up at once, making sure you are meeting your instructor's expectations or balancing your studies, job and social life, it is not uncommon to feel overwhelmed. However, it is also important to maintain integrity in your studies. It may feel tempting to turn to alternate methods to complete your work quickly but those decisions also come with consequences. It takes courage to turn away from temptations to cheat on an exam or plagiarize your work from unauthorized content generators.

There are ways to avoid falling into the pitfalls of academic integrity breaches. Here are some tips to keep you on-track and completing your studies with integrity.

Tips for Avoiding Academic Misconduct

Preparation and Keeping Track of Your Work

Effective time management, asking for help and keeping organized can help to place you in a good position to avoid engaging in academically dishonest behaviour.

Be an "early bird"

Just like the phrase "early bird gets the worm" says, starting your assignments early and working on them over a longer period of time is a great way to set yourself up for success. Academic Integrity breaches are often born out of desperation or leaving coursework to the last minute. By starting early, it leaves you with more time to ask your instructor questions about the assignments and avoiding falling into situations where you make a decision you might regret.

Ask for help

You may read the assignment instructions but still have questions. Remember, there is no shame in asking your instructor for clarification. For example, if it says "collaboration allowed", what do they mean by this? Or can you use sources outside of the course textbook for your assignment? By fully understanding your instructor's expectations, you are much more likely to complete your work with integrity and avoid any unintentional academic integrity breaches.

Keep track of deadlines

Staying organized can be a key to success in post-secondary. Each course you take will have different assignments and exams with their own individual dates and deadlines. Writing them down allows you to plan ahead, make a study or work plan and avoid last minute desperate decisions.
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The Importance of Proper Citation

Documenting your sources, following proper citation requirements for direct quotes and ideas that are not your own are all consistent with practicing academic integrity.

Keep track of your sources

Taking notes about your sources as you read them will help you remember what pieces of information came from what source. This way, if you ask yourself the question, "where did this come from?" you'll already know!

Give proper credit and indication for direct quotes

When you are using an author's words in exactly the order they used them, you need to let the reader know exactly which words are not yours. This can be done by putting quotation marks around this text (for example, "To be or not to be.") and including a proper citation consistent with the citation style you are using.

Include a citation for paraphrased text

In academic writing, you will likely have to change the exact words of a source while still using the information it provides. This is called paraphrasing - taking the information and putting it into your own words. Make sure you are still including proper citations when you paraphrase to indicate the ideas belong to someone else.