Discussion 2 Reply to Academic Integrity “250 words”

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Academic Integrity: 
All three videos talk about academic honesty, what it is, how to avoid it, and what to do if you are wrongly accused. The videos are important for students since, as cited in the last video (Intellectual Theft) a large portion of plagiarism is unintentional and can be easily avoided. The main topics of the videos include academic honesty vs dishonesty, the importance of academic honesty, and the different kinds of plagiarism; more importantly, after watching these three videos I learned what academic dishonesty is, what to do in case you are wrongly accused of academic dishonesty, and how to identify and avoid plagiarism. Over the next couple of paragraphs, I’ll go over each of the main topics from the videos and my learning outcomes.
Academic honesty, as showcased in our first video (Thinking Integrity: What is academic integrity?), is taking credit where the credit is your but also giving credit where credit is due. I believe it is important for all students to take credit for the work they have done, but, when it is necessary, also give credit to others. Understanding academic honesty will prevent you from discrediting your work and make sure everyone receives proper credit for their efforts.
Academic dishonesty, on the other hand, can be an array of things, like cheating, not giving credit, turning in someone else’s work, plagiarizing, improper collaboration, fabrication and falsifying information, assisting others in dishonest behavior, obtaining an unfair advantage, and submitting the same work in multiple courses without permission. Academic dishonesty can happen accidentally, that is why it is important to know to quickly identify it. Being dishonest with your work can cause you a lot of trouble, you should always strive to be honest and maintain a good image for yourself and your colleagues.
Now that you understand what academic honesty and dishonesty are you might be asking your self “why is academic honesty so important?” well the second video dives deeper into why all students, and professionals, should always strive to submit honest work. The importance of academic honesty goes back to your education and your knowledge, it is extremely difficult to learn a subject, or become an expert in a field, when you do not put the effort in to do the work.
Academic honesty showcases your understanding of the subject, it materializes your knowledge growth through education. Academic honesty is important because it solidifies your expertise. In the second video (Think Integrity: What are the students’ responsibilities?) it is mentioned that academic dishonesty prohibits you from getting a proper education, and it also devalues the university as a whole. I believe that the devaluation of a university is a crucial part of why academic honesty is so important, if a university allows, or tolerates, dishonest work students will graduate and move into the professional field with a broken education, which will give hiring managers a reason to avoid the university and give it a bad reputation. In short, academic honesty is important because it solidifies your education and it prevents the devaluation of your university.
There are numerous types of plagiarism, as we learned from the third video (Intellectual Theft), plagiarism can often occur by accident, or sometimes, students aren’t even aware that what was done can be considered plagiarism. Plagiarism.org is a great source to analyze and learn more about plagiarism, there you can find the plagiarism spectrum which is the ten most common forms of plagiarism found at universities today.
The plagiarism spectrum includes the following: #1 clone, submitting another works word by word, #2 CRTL-C, contains significant portions of text from a single source without alternations, #3 find-replace, changing keywords and phrases retaining the essential content of the source, #4 remix, paraphrases from multiple sources made to fit together, #5 recycle, borrows generously from the writer’s previous work without citation, #6 Hybrid, combines perfectly cited sources with copied passages without citation, #7 mashup, mixes copied material from multiple sources, #8 404 error, includes citations to non-existent or inaccurate information about sources, #9 Aggregator, includes proper citation to sources but the paper contains almost no original work, #10 retweet, includes proper citation but relies too closely on the texts original wording, and/or structure. Besides all the great points that the three videos made I also learned a lot.
The most valuable piece of knowledge that the first video (Think Integrity: what is academic integrity?) gave me was the understanding of what dishonesty is. Dishonesty goes much further than simply cheating on an exam, it can include the lack of credit in exchange for using work that is not yours. Understanding the expanse of dishonesty helped me make sure that I don’t accidentally turn in dishonest work.
Dishonesty expands from cheating to obtaining an unfair advantage, as suggested by the first video (Think Integrity: What is academic integrity?). So for example, if you fabricate a source of information, that is academic dishonesty, or if you turn in work that was not made by you, that would also be considered academic dishonesty. Academic dishonesty extends to you even if you help someone be dishonest. I believe that it is important for us all to maintain our academic honest and do our best to understand the regulations at our universities.
During the second video (Think Integrity: What are students’ responsibilities?) the students go over what to do in case you are wrongly accused of academic dishonesty. I thought that it was interesting how their university has a dedicated department for academic honesty, so your first step would be to go there and file a complaint. I have done some research on FIU and we do have an Academic Integrity department located at GC 311 at the Modesto A. Maidique Campus.
FIU gives a lot of tips on how to move forward with claims. First of all, on the website (https://studentaffairs.fiu.edu/get-support/student-conduct-and-academic-integrity/academic-integrity/index.php (Links to an external site.)) you can file a report instantly, there is also an Incident Reporting Form that you can fill out and submit at the office. Besides that, they have office hours, a phone number, fax number, and email to make contacting them that much easier. The most interesting part for me was the Instagram account that FIU’s department of academic integrity created, there you can find tips on how to maintain honesty and how to spot dishonesty behavior.
Without a doubt, the most valuable lesson I learned from watching these videos is how to avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism is the most common form of academic dishonesty, as stated in the second video (Thin integrity: What are the students’ responsibilities?), and sometimes can happen unintentionally. I highly recommend everyone to visit https://plagiarism.org/ (Links to an external site.), where you will be able to find tools to better expand your understanding of plagiarism.
On the website, I was able to find articles that teach you about plagiarism, also a checklist for avoiding plagiarism, and how to avoid plagiarism when using research data. Being able to identify plagiarism is the first step to avoiding it, the second step would be to learn how to correctly cite sources and legitimize your work. Knowing how to voiding plagiarism will prove to be important to you throughout your life and I recommend everyone to at least once check out https://plagiarism.org/ (Links to an external site.).
In summary, I learned a lot from these three videos and my research. I now know how to avoid plagiarism, and where to go if I have any academic honesty related questions. I also believe that these videos will make it easier to analyze my work in the future and make sure it is 100% honest.