Academic Integrity Essential For Student’s Intellectual Development

According the Walden University Student Handbook academic integrity to be essential for each student’s intellectual development (2013 Code of Conduct Student Handbook). This allows students opportunity to freely exchange, students and instructors attribution. Enrollment to the University solidifies a commitment to abide by the code of conduct. By instilling academic integrity within your writing it gives students a chance to write creatively while accepting the responsibility for academic integrity (COCSH, 2013).

There are many reasons to maintain academic integrity, but it sometimes becomes difficult for this success to achieve at a doctoral level. It is important that students not deny themselves the opportunity to succeed by taking short cuts. Thus, this will compromise their integrity and violate the Student code of conduct. Students are encourages students to may submit questions and concerns to contact their faculty mentor, course instructor, or academic advisor. (2013) Plagiarism In my opinion, Plagiarism is taking someone’s original ideas and writing and making it yours without giving proper credit to the author.

Plagiarism can be avoided by always citing sources that ideas are derived from other works as use for your own ideas when writing. Credit should be given when credit is due (APA 2010,p15). Self-Plagiarism is when you do not present your own previously published works accurately. According to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, each time a student summarizes a passage or rearrange the order of a sentence by changing some of the words, credit to the source is required (APA 2010). This is required to safeguard other writer’s ideas.

In some instances, such as describing details or an analytical approach extensive self-referencing is undesirable (APA 2010 p16). Citation It is necessary to avoid plagiarism this can be completed when citations occur and also when original ideas are not derived. According to the APA Manual the author, year, and specific page citation or paragraph are required quotation comprising of less than 40 words, should open, and close with double quotation mark and the source cited in parentheses. (APA, 2010, p171).

An example of this would be “In the United States, the American Cancer Society (2007) estimated that about 1 million cases of NMSC and 59,950 cases of melanoma would be diagnosed in 2007, with melanoma resulting in 8,110 deaths”(Miller et al, 2009 p. 209. ) Conclusion In conclusion, Academic Integrity is imperative and should be adhered to in order to maintain the highest level of scholarly standards. Paraphrasing, citing author’s contributions correctly and acknowledging secondary sources allow readers to discover informative writings and strengthen the writer’s credibility to contribute accurately.