Guide to Avoiding Plagiarism
Avoid Plagiarism = Credit Your Sources
Straight up copying and paraphrasing can put you at risk of plagiarism. Not all of your ideas can be purely original, so what to do? Cite your sources, give credit where its due.
The Library has some useful guides to help you cite your sources.
Academic Honesty @ CSC
Students are encouraged and expected, with the assistance of the faculty, to conduct themselves in conformity with the highest standards regarding academic honestly. Violation of college, state, or federal standards about plagiarism, cheating, or falsification of official records will not be tolerated. Students violating such standards will be advised and disciplined. Violations of these standards may result in assignment failure, course failure, suspension, or dismissal from the college. Students are encouraged to seek the advice of instructors as to the proper procedures to avoid such violations.
The following acts are examples of academic dishonesty:
Cheating – intentionally using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in any academic exercise.
Fabrication – intentional and unauthorized falsification or invention of any information or citation in an academic exercise.
Facilitating Academic Dishonesty – intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another in an act of academic dishonesty.
Generative AI - the use of artificial intelligence platforms and/or content produced by AI assistive software (e.g. ChatGPT, Dall-E 2, Copilot, etc.,) against course use parameters.
Plagiarism – appropriating or imitating language, ideas, and thoughts of another author, representing them as one’s own original work.
The following acts are examples of plagiarism:
- Submitting an assignment that someone else has written and claiming the work as one's own.
- Submitting an assignment that contains sections, paragraphs, sentences, or key phrases that someone else has written without appropriately documenting the source(s) for each portion of the assignment not written by the student submitting the assignment.
- Submitting an assignment that contains paraphrased ideas from another source, published or unpublished, without appropriately documenting the source for each paraphrase. (Changing around a few words in a sentence from the source is not sufficient to avoid plagiarism.)
CSC Instructors have access to Turnitin, a tool that automatically detects plagiarism. However, Turnitin is not just a tool for faculty--students can use it too, as a way to check your work. Chadron State College students have the access to utilize Turnitin tools on assignments they have created before they are submitted to instructors. Through the web-based version of Microsoft Word (which is available to all currently enrolled CSC students), students can have Turnitin Draft Coach review assignments to check for any improperly cited sources or unintentional plagiarism. It allows students the opportunity to fix these issues before they get submitted.
Using Artificial Intelligence
CSC does not have a unifying policy on the use of AI in student work. Instead, it's up to the instructor to decide what amount of AI use is allowed in their classes. Below are some sample policies for what your instructor might allow. If you are not sure of your instructor's stance on AI, please communicate with them and/or play it safe. And please don't assume just because one instructor may allow AI use in a course that your other instructors do. Each instructor has their own policy on what is allowed in their class.
- AI Use is Prohibited on Student Work: Using AI to write your paper is plagiarism. Students are not allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools, such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments in this course. Each student is expected to complete each assignment without substantive assistance from others, including automated tools. If the source of the work is unclear, I may require you to meet with me to explain the ideas and your writing process.
- AI Use is Allowed with Prior Permission: As a college student, it is your responsibility to maintain the highest standards of academic integrity. Representing work generated by artificial intelligence (AI) as one's own work is academically dishonest. This includes (a) ensuring that all work submitted for grades is your own original work, and (b) properly citing any sources that you use. Students are allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools such as DeepSeek, ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments in this course if instructor permission is obtained in advance or an assignment specifically includes an option to use AI tools. Unless given permission to use AI tools, each student is expected to complete each assignment without substantive assistance from others, including automated tools.
- AI Use is Allowed with Acknowledgment/Citation: Students are allowed to use advanced automated tools (artificial intelligence or machine learning tools such as ChatGPT or Dall-E 2) on assignments if the use is properly documented and credited. For example, text generated using ChatGPT-3 should include a citation such as:
Chat-GPT-3. (YYYY, Month DD of query). “Text of your query.” Generated using OpenAI. https://chat.openai.com/
Material generated using other tools should follow a similar citation convention (see style guides), and instructors reserve the right to request an oral explanation of answers.