Understanding Academic Integrity

In this scenario, you incorrectly cited a source.

How is this a Breach of Academic Integrity?

An in-text citation should allow anyone who reads your work to be able to find the original source you are referring to. As you learned in the previous scenario, "Padding a Reference List," every in-text citation must have a matching reference in the reference list. In this scenario, by incorrectly citing a source, you have committed plagiarism.

According to Sheridan’s Academic Integrity Policy (2016), one way that students plagiarize is by “copying another person’s words without the use of quotation marks and appropriate references to signify that these are excerpts from someone else’s work” (p. 5).  If you cannot find the correct source for a quote or for information that you’ve paraphrased, it should not be included in your paper.

Note-Taking Tips

When taking notes, include all of the necessary information you’ll need for creating your citation at the top of your notes page - including author(s) name(s), date of publication, title, page or paragraph number.

When using online library databases:

• Copy the reference directly from the online source.
• Check over any automatically-generated references for any errors before including them in your work. References that are automatically-generated often contain small errors (ex. incorrect capitalization, punctuation, missing information).

For more information on taking notes, refer to the Taking Notes guide.