Newton North Library LLC: Plagiarism Policy

Core value: NNHS "strives for academic, vocational, athletic, and artistic excellence."

No student will use anyone else's work without proper attribution.

Plagiarism is the improper use of, or failure to give credit to, another person's writings, visual or musical representation, or ideas. It can be an act as subtle as inadvertently neglecting to use quotation marks or references when using another source of as blatant as knowingly copying an entire paper, or parts of a paper, and claiming it as your own.
  - edited version of statement from Plagiarism.org, p. 1, May 15, 2000

Teachers will discuss this plagiarism policy in every class at the beginning of a course and discuss academic and ethical reasons for not using the work of other people without proper attribution.

Teachers will make it clear that they will be vigilant about looking for plagiarism and will explain the consequences and penalties.

If a teacher and department head believe that plagiarism has occurred, they will meet with the student. When they determine that the student has plagiarized:

If it is determined that the student has committed an offense: The student will receive a zero for the assignment. The teacher and department head will decide whether the student deserves a chance to redo the work and how the zero will affect the term grade.

The teacher or department head will inform the housemaster and the parent. The housemaster will keep a record of the offense without putting an official letter in the student's file. The housemaster has the discretion to suspend a student for a first offense.

If the student commits a second offense: The student will receive a zero for the assignment with no makeup, and the term grade with reflect this zero. The student will serve a one-day suspension. Suspensions automatically result in a letter in the student's file.

Further incidents of plagiarism will result in more serious disciplinary action

DEFINITIONS OF TERMS

Plagiarism: Passing off someone else's work as if it were your own.

Self-Plagiarism: Using your own previous work and using it on another project (without modification).

Attribution: Giving credit; giving the source of your information

Citation: A note identifying the source of a quotation, idea, opinion or fact

Footnote / endnote: A citation (see above) either at the bottom of a page, or at the end of a paper

Bibliography: A document at the end of a paper listing all of the sources that were consulted to write the paper

Intellectual Property: A person's original ideas of work, usually protected by copyright law

Common Knowledge: Ordinary information that most people know or that is not disputed, such as: President Kennedy was elected in 1960.