Plagiarism/Cheating Policy September 2008
Intention
The Ledyard Public Schools' Mission Statement says that Ledyard
Schools will "prepare students to be productive and responsible
citizens…" As ethical behavior is a large part of responsible
citizenship, the faculty and staff of Ledyard High School believe it is
important to have a clear policy concerning plagiarism and other forms
of academic cheating.
Definitions
Ledyard High School defines cheating generally in accordance with
Board of Education policy, which says that "Cheating by students…is
attempting to take credit for someone else's work, using unauthorized
materials, or otherwise acting to deceive the evaluator in an
assignment, project, or test." LHS distinguishes between two
different degrees of plagiarism. They are defined as follows:
Intentional Plagiarism is defined as, but not limited to:
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Obvious, substantial, verbatim reproduction of information
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Fabrication of sources, falsification of page numbers, or other deliberate misdocumentation
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Submission of others' work as the students' own.
This applies to uncited paraphrasing of another's ideas as well as
verbatim use of others' words. (Others' may refer to either scholarly sources, online "cribbed" essays, or the work of other students).
Technical Plagiarism is defined as, but limited to:
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Poor paraphrasing, amounting to "pearling" of "translating" another's work
-
Improper citation or documentation that misrepresents a source
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Insufficient citation of factual information not held to be common knowledge (common knowledge is defined as facts readily available from a variety of sources)
-
Poor integration of direct quotations with the student's own writing
Determination of Plagiarism/Cheating
Parents must be informed immediately when a student is suspected of
plagiarism or cheating. Through the use of turnitin.com and other
search engines, teachers will, in most cases, be able to provide
documented evidence of plagiarism. A committee of teachers shall be
established to review, as needed, cases of plagiarism. The purpose of
the committee will be to determine that evidence of plagiarism exists
and which definition applies, not to apply penalties. Those are
prescribed below.
Academic consequences
Evidence of intentional plagiarism shall result in the student's receiving a grade of zero
for the assignment in which the plagiarism occurs. Adherence to
departmental grading rubrics shall be negated by evidence of
plagiarism.
Evidence of technical plagiarism shall result in a deduction of points
– the number of points to be determined by the teacher, based on the
severity and number of occurrences – for the assignment in which the
plagiarism occurs.
Disciplinary consequences
In addition to the academic consequences, Ledyard High School also firmly believes that intentional plagiarism/cheating
is an act of misconduct that merits disciplinary consequences as
specified in the discipline grid. In addition, our National Honor
Society advisor should be informed of the verified
plagiarism/cheating. Students who later apply for membership in NHS
must disclose past offenses. Again, in all cases parents must be
informed of the suspicion immediately.