Instructors are encouraged to include a statement on their syllabi that defines what academic integrity means for their course and to discuss academic integrity directly with their students during class. An academic integrity statement should be tailored in part to the course assignments, so that, for example, a course with assigned papers will discuss plagiarism and a course with exams will discuss permitted sources. It is especially important to address what constitutes appropriate collaboration on homework, problem sets, and any other work completed outside of class time. The Poorvu Center Writing Center provides excellent videos for students about academic integrity and plagiarism. Below, we provide a sample statement on academic integrity that you include in your syllabi.
“Academic integrity is a core university value that ensures respect for the academic reputation of the University, its students, faculty and staff, and the degrees it confers. The University expects that students will conduct themselves in an honest and ethical manner and respect the intellectual work of others. Please ask about my expectations regarding permissible or encouraged forms of student collaboration if they are unclear.
Any work that you submit at any stage of the writing process— thesis, outline, draft, bibliography, final submission, presentations, blog posts, and more—must be your own; in addition, any words, ideas, or data that you borrow from other people and include in your work must be properly documented, including work produced by generative AI. Failure to do either of these things is plagiarism. I seek to protect the rights and intellectual property of all students, writers, and scholars by insisting that individual students act with integrity.
Academic integrity requires that students at Yale acknowledge all of the sources that inform their coursework. Most commonly, this means (a) citing the sources of any text or data that you include in papers and projects, and (b) only collaborating with other students or using tools such as generative AI in ways that are explicitly endorsed by the assignment. Yale’s dedication to academic integrity flows from our two primary commitments: supporting research and educating students to contribute to ongoing scholarship. A safe and ethical climate for research demands that previous authors and artists receive credit for their work. And learning requires that you do your own work. Conventions for acknowledging sources vary across disciplines, and instructors should instruct you in the forms they expect; they should also delineate which forms of collaboration among students are permitted. But ultimately it is the student’s responsibility to act with integrity, and the burden is on you to ask questions if anything about course policies is unclear.”
Provide expanded definitions and examples of plagiarism for students to refer to and study as part of the work of the course. You may want students to read these and report back to you, or you may want to use them as part of in-class work. For a general overview, we suggest having students read Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism from Using Sources. You may also want to find or create explanations of any particular concerns about scholarly integrity that arise in your discipline.
For the sciences: “Writing at Yale” explains how to quote prose sources, but does not address problems with quantitative data. For a good discussion of computer programming and plagiarism, see the Academic Integrity site at Princeton. Students also struggle with the concept of collaborative work; they often do not understand the rules and expectations regarding work produced by joint authors. We urge you to find or create materials that help students understand how collaboration should proceed. As a way to begin this process, look at the treatment of collaboration on the Academic Integrity site at Princeton.
Develop exercises for students that deepen their understanding of correct and incorrect uses of sources, usually in concert with a writing project. The following are just some examples of possible exercises.