Beyond Plagiarism: Other Academic Integrity Issues

This tutorial focuses on plagiarism as a key type of academic dishonesty. It is important you understand that plagiarism has many cousins which are also common and serious. The WSU Division of Student Affairs lists a host of these problematic academic integrity examples including: cheating, falsification, fabrication, multiple submission, abuse of academic materials, complicity in academic dishonesty, and misconduct in research. The definitions for each of these terms are present in the WSU Academic Integrity Policy.

Another close relative to plagiarism is copyright. Violations of copyright and acts of plagiarism are often confused. As a very basic definition, copyright is the ability to control copying. Beyond preventing unauthorized duplication, copyright prevents providing public performances or making derivative works of copyrighted materials. Almost any ideas that are expressed in a tangible format are immediately copyrighted. Literary, musical, and dramatic works are included; as are graphics, pictures, email messages, and Web pages. For non-corporate authors, copyright lasts 90 years after the death of the author.

The main difference between plagiarism and copyright is one of permission and attribution. Plagiarism focuses on attributing credit to (providing a citation for) ideas borrowed, while copyright centers on gaining permission to copy an author's work.

(The copyright and plagiarism explanation above is based on information from two university plagiarism tutorials: North Carolina State University and Georgetown University)