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Most colleges and universities in the United
States have established honor codes or statements of rules
students are expected to follow in their academic work. These
rules relate primarily to academic honesty and originality
as they are defined by U.S. educational institutions. Many
international students have discovered that U.S. academic
rules are much different from the ones they followed at home.
U.S. educational institutions take these rules very seriously,
and ignorance of the rules usually is not accepted as an excuse
for breaking them. Even if a particular academic practice
is accepted in your country or is part of your culture, it
will not be an acceptable explanation for violating the rules
at a U.S. college or university.
The university honor code, or the university code of conduct,
is usually distributed to new students at the very beginning
of the semester and is frequently a topic for discussion during
new student orientation.
If you have any questions about what to do regarding any
of these issues, talk to your instructor, your academic adviser,
or the international student adviser. There is a U.S. idiom
that applies here: "It is better to be safe than sorry."
Cheating
Cheating is considered to be a failure of honesty in U.S.
colleges and universities. It means getting unauthorized help
on an assignment, quiz, or examination. You must not receive
from anyone, nor give to anyone, any information, answers,
or help during an examination or any kind of test. You must
not take notes or books to the examination if this is forbidden,
and you must not refer to any books or notes while you are
taking the test unless you are instructed otherwise. Sometimes
students who speak a foreign language during an examination
are perceived by others to be cheating, even though they may
simply be asking a fellow student in their native language
for a piece of paper or an eraser. You should be aware of
this and try to avoid suspicion.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is another kind of cheating. It is the failure
to do your own original work in written assignments. Instead,
you use someone else's words or ideas as though they were
your own, without crediting the source. Plagiarism is considered
literary and intellectual theft and is vigorously condemned
in academic work. When quoting words or ideas from books,
magazines, Web sites, recordings, films, or other sources
of information, always make sure you give appropriate credit
to the author in your text. Many U.S. universities have specific
guidelines to follow when quoting an author and some of them
publish guides for papers. Make sure you are aware of the
university policies on quoting words and ideas to avoid being
accused of plagiarism.
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