Academic Integrity:
A Letter to My Students[1]
Bill Taylor
Professor of Political Science
Oakton Community College
Des Plaines, IL
60016
btaylor@oakton.edu
Here at the
beginning of the semester I want to say something to you about academic
integrity.[2]
I’m deeply
convinced that integrity is an essential part of any true educational
experience, integrity on my part as a faculty member and integrity on your part
as a student.
To take an easy
example, would you want to be operated on by a doctor who cheated his way
through medical school? Or would you
feel comfortable on a bridge designed by an engineer who cheated her way
through engineering school. Would you
trust your tax return to an accountant who copied his exam answers from his
neighbor?
Those are easy
examples, but what difference does it make if you as a student or I as a
faculty member violate the principles of academic integrity in a political
science course, especially if it’s not in your major?
For me, the answer
is that integrity is important in this course precisely because integrity is
important in all areas of life. If we
don’t have integrity in the small things, if we find it possible to justify
plagiarism or cheating or shoddy work in things that don’t seem important, how
will we resist doing the same in areas that really do matter, in areas where
money might be at stake, or the possibility of advancement, or our esteem in
the eyes of others?
Personal integrity
is not a quality we’re born to naturally.
It’s a quality of character we need to nurture, and this requires
practice in both meanings of that word (as in practice the piano and practice a
profession). We can only be a person of
integrity if we practice it every day.
What does that
involve for each of us in this course?
Let’s find out by going through each stage in the course. As you’ll see, academic integrity basically
requires the same things of you as a student as it requires of me as a teacher.
I.
Preparation for Class
What Academic
Integrity Requires of Me in This Area
With regard to
coming prepared for class, the principles of academic integrity require that I
come having done the things necessary to make the class a worthwhile
educational experience for you. This
requires that I:
·
reread the
text (even when I’ve written it myself),
·
clarify
information I might not be clear about,
·
prepare the
class with an eye toward what is current today (that is, not simply rely on
past notes), and
·
plan the
session so that it will make it worth your while to be there.
What Academic
Integrity Requires of You in This Area
With regard to
coming prepared for class, the principles of academic integrity suggest that
you have a responsibility to yourself, to me, and to the other students to do
the things necessary to put yourself in a position to make fruitful
contributions to class discussion. This
will require you to:
·
read the text
before coming to class,
·
clarify
anything you’re unsure of (including looking up words you don’t understand),
·
formulate
questions you might have so you can ask them in class, and
·
think about
the issues raised in the directed reading guide.
II. In Class
What Academic
Integrity Requires of Me in This Area
With regard to
class sessions, the principles of academic integrity require that I take you
seriously and treat you with respect.
This requires that I:
·
show up for
all class sessions, unless I’m simply unable to do so,
·
come to class
on time, and not leave early,
·
not waste
class time, but use it well to fulfil the objectives of the course
·
do my best to
answer your questions,
·
honestly
acknowledge when I don’t have an answer or don’t know something, and then go
out and get an answer by the next class,
·
both
encourage you, and give you an equal opportunity, to participate in class
discussions,
·
contain you
if your enthusiasm for participating in the discussions makes it difficult for
others to participate,
·
assume that
you are prepared for class and that I won’t embarrass you if I call on you,
even if your hand isn’t up,
·
respect the
views you express and not make fun of you or of them,
·
not allow
others to ridicule you or your ideas, or you to do the same to them, and
·
make clear
when I am expressing an opinion, and not impose on you my views on
controversial issues.
What Academic
Integrity Requires of You in This Area
With regard to
class sessions, the principles of academic integrity require you to take both
me and your fellow students seriously and to treat us with respect. This requires that you:
·
show up for
all class sessions, unless you are simply unable to do so,
·
come to class
on time and not leave early,
·
make good use
of class time by being engaged in what’s going on,
·
ask questions
about anything you don’t understand, and not just for your own sake but because
other students might not realize that they also don’t understand,
·
participate
in the class discussions so as to contribute your thinking to the shared effort
to develop understanding and insight (remember that even something that’s
clearly wrong can contribute to the discussion by stimulating an idea in
another student that s/he might not otherwise have had),
·
monitor your
own participation so as to allow for and encourage the participation of others,
·
respect the
other students by not making fun of them or their ideas, and by not holding
side-conversations that distract them (and me) from the class discussion.
III. With Regard to Exams
What Academic
Integrity Requires of Me in This Area
With regard to
exams, the principles of academic integrity require that I:
·
do my best
during class time to prepare you for the exams,
·
be available
during office hours or at arranged times to work with you individually to help
you get ready for the exams,
·
develop exam
questions that will be a meaningful test not only of the course content, but
also of your ability to express and defend intelligent judgments about that
content,
·
carefully
monitor the exam so that honest students will not be disadvantaged by other
students who might choose to cheat if given the opportunity, and
·
give due and
careful consideration to your answers when evaluating them and assigning a
grade.
What Academic
Integrity Requires of You in This Area
With regard to
exams, the principles of academic integrity require you to:
·
come to class
having done your best to prepare for the exam, including seeking my help if you
need it,
·
make full use
of the time available to write the best answers you can,
·
accept your
limitations and not try to get around them by using cheat sheets, copying, or
seeking help from another student,
·
not giving
help to other students, or making it easy for them to copy off of you.
IV.
With Regard to Written Assignments
What Academic
Integrity Requires of Me in This Area
With regard to
written assignments, the principles of academic integrity require that I:
·
devise
meaningful assignments that grow out of and further the work done in the
classroom,
·
provide you
with a clear description of that assignment so that you know what is expected
of you and what I’ll be looking for when I grade it,
·
give due and
careful consideration to your paper when evaluating it and assigning a grade,
and
·
confront you
if I suspect that you have plagiarized or in other ways not handed in work that
is entirely your own.
What Academic
Integrity Requires of You in This Area
With regard to
written assignments, the principles of academic integrity require you to:
·
start your
research and writing early enough to ensure that you have the time you need to
do your best work,
·
hand in a
paper which you yourself have done specifically for this course and not
borrowed from someone else or recycled from an earlier course,
·
not be
satisfied with a paper that is less than your best work,
·
seek only
appropriate help from others (such as proof-reading, or discussing your ideas
with someone else to gain clarity in your thinking), and
·
give full and
proper credit to your sources.
Let me expand on
this last point, since it applies to both you and me.
By its very
nature, education and the accumulation of knowledge is a shared
enterprise. None of us has the time,
let alone the background knowledge required, to learn everything on our
own. Virtually everything we know has
come to us because someone else has taken the time to think about something,
research it, and then share what s/he’s learned with us in a class lecture or,
more likely, in an article or book.
This is every bit as true for me as a teacher as it is for you as
students. I’d have very little to teach
if all I could talk about is what I’ve learned solely on my own.
In a class lecture
it would be too disruptive if I stopped to cite all of my sources, but I know,
and you need to know, that I am sharing with you the things I’ve learned from
hundreds of different authors. What I
contribute is the way I bring their ideas together into a coherent whole so
that it makes sense to you.
If this is true
for me, how much more so for you. I
have many more years of education and reading behind me than you do. I don’t expect you to do original research. Instead, I expect you to read about the
research of others, and to bring together their ideas in such a way that makes
sense to you and will make sense to me.
Therefore, it’s essential for you to cite your sources in any research
paper you write. The academic reasons
for doing so are to give credit to those who have done the original research
and written the article or book, and to allow me to look at them if I needed to
find out if you have properly understood what the author was trying to
say.
But at a practical
level, citing your sources is a way to show that you’ve done the assignment. If your paper contains no citations, the
implication is that you have done a piece of original research, but that wasn’t
the assignment. Citations (along with
the bibliography) show that you have consulted a variety of resources as the
assignment required. They’re also an
acknowledgement of your indebtedness to those authors.
So don’t feel you
need to hide the fact that you’re drawing from one of your sources. That’s what it’s all about.
V. With Regard to Your Final Grade
What Academic
Integrity Requires of Me in This Area
With regard to
your final grade, the principles of academic integrity require that I carefully
weigh all of your grades during the course, as well as the other factors that
affect the final grade as spelled out in the syllabus, before assigning a final
grade.
What Academic
Integrity Requires of You in This Area
With regard to
your final grade, the principles of academic integrity require that, if you
feel I’ve made a mistake in computing that grade, you have a responsibility to
come to me as soon as possible prepared to show why you think I’ve made a
mistake.
VI. Failures to Live up to Our Responsibilities
In all of the
areas listed above, I will do my best to live up to my responsibilities. If you feel I’ve failed to do so, you have
every right to call me on it. If you
do, I have a responsibility to give you respectful consideration. If you feel that I do not do these things,
you have the right (and I would say the responsibility) to bring this to the
attention of my dean.
At the same time,
I have a right to expect that you will live up to your responsibilities. If I get a sense that you’re not doing so, I
consider it a matter of my academic integrity that I call you on it.
Indeed, in certain
circumstances (such as cheating or plagiarism) I may be required to charge you
with a violation of the College’s Code of Academic Conduct. For the College is every bit as committed to
academic integrity as I am.
You should
familiarize yourself with that Code.
You can find it in the student handbook; it’s also summarized on page 39
in the College Catalog. Be sure to
notice that there’s a procedure that’s designed to protect your rights. But that procedure might also result in one
or another sanction being imposed on you if you’re found guilty of violating
the Code of Academic Integrity.
Which brings me to
the most difficult question with regard to academic integrity; what if you
become aware of a fellow classmate who is not living up to the principles of
academic integrity, but you sense that I’m not aware of it? What should you do? I’ll give you the answer, but I’ll
acknowledge up front that it’s a hard one.
Nevertheless, I would hope that
you would at least grapple with it if you are ever confronted with the
situation. The answer is that you
should say something to that student, and if worse comes to worse, you should
tell me. But why?
Academic
integrity, as with so much in life, involves a system of interconnected rights
and responsibilities that reflect our mutual dependence upon one another. The success of our individual efforts in
this course, as with so much in life, depends on all of us conscientiously
exercising our rights and living up to our responsibilities. And the failure of any of us—even just one
of us—to do what is required will diminish, however slightly, the opportunity
for the rest to achieve their goals.
That is why it’s essential for all of us in this class to practice
academic integrity, in both senses of the word practice. For practice today will lay a solid
foundation for practice tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after
that, so that through daily practice integrity will come to be woven throughout
the fabric of our lives, and thus through at least a part of the fabric of
society.
Note: Permission is granted to use any or all of the material in this letter in any way that is consistent with its purpose of promoting academic integrity.
William M. Taylor
Oakton Community College
Des Plaines, IL 60016
btaylor@oakton.edu
[1] This letter grows out of, and is based upon, ideas contained in the first draft of "The Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity," a document that was developed by, and is available from, the Center for Academic Integrity (http://www.academicintegrity.org).
[2] The American Heritage Dictionary defines integrity as the “steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.”