WHAT IS ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?
Academic integrity is the foundation of higher education, an essential component of informed and well-reasoned exploration of any topic. In order to have confidence in anyone’s identification and use of facts, arguments and opinions, we rely on evidence of an honest process of arriving at that knowledge—just as having confidence in our friends requires us to rely on evidence that when they say they will do something, they follow through. One can recognize academic integrity by how clearly thinkers express what they’ve learned in their own words and how they give credit to the sources of that learning. Another crucial aspect of academic integrity is the ability to demonstrate what one has learned through personal effort, without cheating. When we have confidence that thinkers have “done their homework” in this way, it makes valid evaluation of their thinking and work easier and more credible.
In the same way that performance-enhancing drugs devalue athletic achievements, lack of academic integrity devalues the achievement of a college degree. When students take shortcuts to achieve a better grade, the process of acquiring knowledge and discovering how to do that is short-circuited. At some point, that short-circuit can show itself in a lower quality performance than the grades on your record would predict. Which is when the shortcut that got you in the door can just as easily kick you out of it…See http://www.utica.edu/academic/facultyinfo/ascacadinteg.cfm
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Help with avoiding plagiarism: Plagiarism.org