THE SITUATION

• Intellectual honesty is vital to the pursuit, analysis, and communication of research.
• Several different issues are involved:
  • Conduct of research by valid and rigorous scientific methods.
  • Providing clear and accurate attribution when research is based on previous work.
  • When utilizing information from prior research, proper citation of the documents on that research.

INTELLECTUAL HONESTY & PLAGIARISM

Intellectual Honesty

• Intellectual honesty means that any work that you do is the creative product of your own intellectual effort.
• Original work is respected in academic studies, scientific research, business, and the arts.
• Your work may build on and quote from previous work, but the intellectually honest approach requires that you make proper attribution to that work.

Plagiarism

• What is plagiarism? - The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary defines it as, "to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own" and "use (another's production) without crediting the source."
• Paraphrasing - Even paraphrased materials are a form of plagiarism is you do not acknowledge the original content that is being paraprased.
• It is important to realize that work that is not original not only loses respect, in school it gets lower grades, and if the work is stolen (plagiarized) and represented as one's own, the person doing so may suffer major consequences. Students, for example, may be flunked or, even, kicked out of school for plagiarizing another's work.

COPYRIGHT, FAIR USE, & ATTRIBUTION

• All creative works in the US have a defacto "copyright" the moment they come into existence. "Copyright," according to the Merriam-webster.com dictionary, means that someone has " the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish, and sell the matter and form (as of a literary, musical, or artistic work)." US and international laws require that the copyright on the creative products of individuals and organizations be recognized and that compensation be made when those products are used or published. This covers anything that is derived from original text, graphics, photographs, art, and any other material.
• There is, though, a variable level of "fair use" that is allowed as long as you carefully attribute material that you are using to the original author or owner and do not identify it as your own original work. Typically, "fair uses" include quoting or displaying other a portion or selection of some other material for the purposes of education, discussion, review, and/or research.
• Example: It is okay to quote a statement from the Sierra Club that is on the organization's web site as long as you do three things:
  • Put the statement in quotes.
  • Attribute the quote to the author.
  • Indicate where the quore was located.
  • Create a proper bibliographic citation for the quote to be included in the bibliography or "works cited" page of your document.