Foreign Students Must Know About US Academic Integrity

Academic integrity means honesty and respect with which students look at their studies. If we see critically, it is clear that study without academic integrity, it is a waste of time both for the institutions and the students. Academic dishonesty is a wide category for a variety of actions involving plagiarism.

Universities in the US have strong rules and regulations for academic dishonesty; it can lead up to getting failed in a class assignment and eventually getting expelled from the University.

It is harmful to the student and the reputation of the institution in the long run, but it is very beneficial to students in the short-term.

The Faculty of University, also participate in activities promoting genuine work with proper citations, even from the orientation session students are taught that they should avoid plagiarism at all costs.

As International students come from different cultures and in each culture, the act of copy-pasting the work is viewed differently and it is a big challenge for each University to guide the students. Students are informed about the importance of academic integrity as early as they arrive in the United States.

There are two ways by which students are informed about academic integrity in the US Universities.

Through School websites: Many Universities guide International students about academic integrity and multiple ways to avoid plagiarism.

For example, these Universities have different policies regarding plagiarism.

1.    University of Chicago: It has a web page for new students, teaching them how to avoid plagiarism and to cite the references correctly.

2.    California State University: On the website of the library, it has an infographic comparing different perspectives on plagiarism and how students think about plagiarism and what it is in reality.

3.    University of Michigan: It shows different types of plagiarism along with examples and offers tips on how to avoid them.

4.    University of Pittsburgh: It makes it easy for international students to understand plagiarism by displaying the translations of word plagiarism in different languages like Arabic, Chinese, and French.

Aside from these techniques, Universities tend to use on-campus training and teaching regarding this issue, which is quite effective than conveying the message through the website only.

Many faculty members integrate the topic of academic integrity in the course, and some prefer to advise students on campus. Apart from that, there are other ways through which US Universities make sure that all the international students get necessary information about plagiarism.

Tutorials, courses and writing labs: Many Universities now use different tools and techniques to guide students to make their written material free of plagiarism while giving proper credits to authors of reference papers.

Stevenson University made it mandatory for all the international students to take an online test on plagiarism and those who fail, are unable to register for the courses next semester. Academic integrity is an essential component of the American education system.