Plagiarism and Academic Integrity

Integrity, as defined by Palo Alto University, is "giving credit to others for their ideas, expressions, inventions, and collaborative contributions, in reporting research results, in representing the degree to which a student completed work or received academic credit without collaboration, assistance, or access to unauthorized resources, and in representing acts as one’s own acts." (Academic Integrity Policy)

At Palo Alto University, students are expected to contribute to the academic community honestly and in a respectful manner; this includes proper citations and giving credit to works, ideas, or representations to the respective author(s). Please use this guide to understand what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it in your academic journey. 

The academic integrity policy at Palo Alto University defines plagiarism as "the inclusion, in any paper, draft, assignment, presentation, or other work, of someone else’s product, words, ideas, or data and representing it as one’s own work."

Plagiarism can take on numerous forms, such as:

1. Self-plagiarism, an act in which authors reuse content from previous works (data, text, images) and provide little-to-no acknowledgement as to their prior dissemination.
2. Taking a section from an article, book, or document and representing it as your own work.
3. The lifting of a well-phrased sentence without proper credit to the author.
4. Including another individual's ideas as your own thoughts or work.