Plagiarism is to represent someone else’s words or ideas as one’s own.  In an academic community this intellectual dishonesty is a very serious ethical offense.  In this course plagiarism will result in a failing grade for the assignment (in the case of relatively “minor” cases) or for the course.  

Plagiarism includes copying another student’s work.  In many labs students collect and interpret data as a group.  However, each student must write his or her own report (including figures and tables). 

A common, but still unacceptable, form of plagiarism involves changing just a few words (sometimes called "paraphrasing"): 

            Original version:  Gallinaceous birds are remarkable and perhaps unique in the animal kingdom for the extent and diversity of the systems of food signaling they have evolved.

             Plagiarized version:  Chickens are remarkable and probably unique for the extent and diversity of food signaling systems they exhibit (Marler et al. 1986). 

Plagiarism also includes using someone else’s ideas without giving them proper credit.  In the scientific literature credit is given through the use of a citation.  Here are some examples of properly cited information: 

Marler et al. (1986) argued that Gallinaceous birds have an unusually large repertoire of food signaling calls.

or 

Gallinaceous birds have an unusually large repertoire of food signaling calls (Marler et al. 1986). 

In this course you will use the “name-date” system for citations.  For a more complete description of this format go to http://nsm1.nsm.iup.edu/rgendron/citation.shtml. 

Important:  including a citation does not justify plagiarism.  The citation only indicates where the information came from; but it still must be expressed in your own words.  The only exceptions are direct quotes in quotation marks, but these should be used sparingly, if at all, in the writing assignments you do for this class.