COS Plagiarism Policy
Adopted by the COS Academic Senate, December 1999.
Plagiarism is an act of theft committed
by a writer who is stealing someone else’s words or ideas. Plagiarism is an
act of dishonesty. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, a writer is misrepresenting
someone else's words or ideas as his or her own.
- Intentional plagiarism exists
when a student lists sources that he or she has not used; when a student copies
from a source but fails to cite it, thereby misrepresenting the original source's
ideas as his or her own; when a student copies material from another student's
work without giving that other student credit; when a student buys or borrows
a whole paper or portions of a paper from another student or from the World
Wide Web; when a student copies another artist's music or work of art and
tries to submit it as his or her own.
(These examples are not inclusive of
every form of plagiarism possible and should not be considered as such.)
- Unintentional plagiarism, which
is also punishable, may exist when a student attempts to paraphrase or summarize
a source but copies too much from the source instead of re-writing the ideas
in his or her own words; when a student inadvertently fails to include a parenthetical
reference to a source, although the source is listed among the citations at
the end of the paper; when a student fails to put quotation marks around quoted
material; when a student relies too heavily on external sources, thus expressing
few or none of his or her own ideas.
At the discretion of the instructor,
a student who plagiarizes, whether intentionally or unintentionally, may experience
any of the following consequences:
- The student will fail the assignment.
- The student will be required
to rewrite the assignment.
- The student will fail the course.
- The student will be reported
to the Vice President, Student Services/Research, for disciplinary action.
If the student is reported to the
Vice President, Student Services/Research, for disciplinary action, the Vice
President will review the report and begin formal disciplinary actions according
to the College's policies on student misconduct.