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Consequences of Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a violation of one of the most basic tenets of academic and Christian life: the pursuit of truth. The entire university community is held to high standards of behavior, including faculty and staff, and the same is expected of students. 

University Action:

If an act of plagiarism on the part of a student is discovered at Taylor, the plagiarist is subject to university discipline, which may include a range of actions from formal documentation in the student's file to the student's being expelled or his or her degree revoked.

Taylor's Draft Policy on Academic Integrity places the responsibility with the student to understand and avoid plagiarism:

Students should learn how to avoid plagiarism. 

  1. They should learn how to summarize and paraphrase appropriately.
  2. They should learn the appropriate acknowledgement of all sources and ideas, even though what is appropriate may change depending on the discipline. 
  3. They should contact their instructors whenever they are unsure about appropriate acknowledgement of sources or ideas.

Potential Legal Action:

Apart from any university action, the plagiarist is subject to lawsuits and very serious legal consequences. Ronald B. Standler, in his writings on plagiarism in U. S. colleges, points out that:

  1. The owner of a stolen work could sue the plagiarist in federal court for violation of copyright or "false designation of origin."
  2. Making minor changes to a text in order to avoid detection for copyright infringement is also prohibited by law.

Standler notes that the amount of text plagiarized is irrelevant. The court ruling in one copyright infringement case stated that "... no plagiarist can excuse the wrong by showing how much of his work he did not pirate." An individual who sells a paper to a plagiarist is also subject to prosecution in many states under current fraud laws.

Read more about plagiarism court cases involving college students at Standler's site: http://www.rbs2.com/plag.htm#anchor333333

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Last revised July 01, 2009 - 11:42 AM