When students plagiarize or otherwise cheat, there is often clear evidence of a violation based on the writing structure and style. As you work on your projects, be sure to follow these best practices to avoid the appearance of cheating, plagiarism, and misuse of artificial intelligence technology.
- Acquire Content Knowledge: Be prepared to explain your research choices and summarize your sources for your professor who might ask you to discuss your research process and source selections. You should have a thorough, clear, and accurate understanding of each source that you cite, including the author's thesis, evidence, and conclusions, and be familiar enough with each source you select to summarize it accurately when asked. Also, download all articles and save them so that you can show them to your professor if they ask.
- Maintain a Consistent Writing Style: Your writing should reflect your own voice. Language, style, tone, and vocabulary should be your own.
- Engage with New Ideas: Your understanding of the sources you use, and the ideas you find in them, should be evident in your writing. You can accomplish this by taking notes as you read to record what questions each source raised, how each new source connects to your existing knowledge base, and how each source helps you form your own new ideas and support or challenge your thesis.
- Use Sources Judiciously: The sources you quote in your papers and projects should enhance, support, or challenge your own ideas. Quotes should be used sparingly and integrated seamlessly into your own writing.
- Cite Correctly: Be sure that every source you used to inform your projects is acknowledged in your bibliography as well as through in-text notes, footnotes, or endnotes (depending on which citation style is required).
- Verify Your Sources: No matter where you find a citation, you should read the original source yourself to ensure that you fully understand the source and that you are representing it accurately.
