The SMU Honor Code

 

Although courses in fiction-writing are electives, for reasons wholly unknown to me now and then a student decides to turn in a story that he or she did not actually create. Sometimes the story has been written by a friend for a fee or a favor and sometimes the student’s submission has been copied from a published story and perhaps altered here and there with hopes of turning it into an “original.” These instances of plagiarism are immensely disheartening. Those who cheat will never own 100% of their degrees, and they have that to consider over the next half century or so of their lives.

 

At any rate, I don’t have to “prove” as in court-of-law proof that someone has plagiarized before initiating the standard procedures as outlined in the SMU Honor Code. (See the SMU web site for further details.) I may choose to act on suspicion if I wish.

 

Relevant parts of the code as quoted from the web site are:

 

 

“We, the students of Southern Methodist University, with the approval of the provost and the dean of student life, establish the Honor Council to uphold the standards of academic integrity set forth in the Honor Code. Acts punishable under the code include, but are not limited to the following:

“Cheating Intentionally¹ using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in any academic exercise.²

“Fabrication Intentional and unauthorized falsification or invention of any information or citation in an academic exercise.³

“Facilitating Academic Dishonesty Intentionally or knowingly helping or attempting to help another to violate any provision of the Honor Code.⁴

“Plagiarism⁵ Intentionally or knowingly representing the words or ideas of another as one’s own in any academic exercise. The general principles for all honest writing can be summarized briefly.

“Acknowledge indebtedness:

“1. Whenever you quote another person’s actual words.

“2. Whenever you use another person’s idea, opinion, or theory, even if it is completely paraphrased in your own words.

“3. Whenever you borrow facts, statistics, or other illustrative material – unless the information is common knowledge.

“Plagiarism also encompasses the notions of citing quotations and materials from secondary sources that were not directly consulted in the preparation of the student’s work, and copying the organizational and argumentational structure of a work without acknowledging its author.”