Official UAH Statement on Plagiarism: “UAH is committed to the fundamental values of preserving academic honesty as defined in the Student Handbook (7.III.A). The instructor reserves the right to utilize electronic means to help prevent plagiarism. Students agree that by taking this course all assignments are subject to submission for textual similarity review to Turnitin.com. Assignments submitted to Turnitin.com will be included as source documents in Turnitin.com's restricted access database solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism in such documents. The terms that apply to the University's use of the Turnitin.com service, as well as additional information about the company, are described at lib.uah.edu/turnitin.”

What is plagiarism? In the UAH Student Handbook, plagiarism is defined as “the use of any other person’s work (such work need not be copyrighted) and the unacknowledged incorporation of that work in one’s own work offered in fulfillment of academic requirements.” Plagiarism is thus the intentional or unintentional presentation of another’s ideas as one’s own; plagiarism is theft of intellectual property.

Using internet sources: Unless I direct you to do so, I do not want you to use internet sources (or any other outside sources, for that matter) for your papers in this class. All ideas in your papers must be your own, borne out of class discussion and your own careful analysis of the literary works about which you write. If you are tempted to seek outside help because you are having difficulty with the assignment or have fallen behind, then please contact me.

However, you should be aware that when you do use sources from the internet, then you must cite everything that you use in your paper. Students are often confused on the following point, so I want to make this clear:

Internet materials (webpage content, online essays & journal articles, even email and discussion boards) are intellectual property in the same way that printed materials are; internet material is not ‘free’ in the sense that you may use it freely without properly documenting it.

Penalties for plagiarism: The minimum penalty for plagiarism in this course is a zero for the plagiarized work with no rewrite opportunity, so please be careful. I report all cases of plagiarism to the UAH Office of Judicial Affairs. Further penalties are possible and may include failure of the course, as well as suspension or expulsion from the university.

Resources: To avoid plagiarism in your work, and to become a better writer in general, please take advantage of the various resources available to you, beginning with me! I assign out-of-class work far enough in advance so that if you are diligent, you should have ample time to see me with questions about your writing, including questions about plagiarism.

Other resources you should consult:

The UAH Writing Center is available to help you with all aspects of writing, including proper use and documentation of source material. The Writing Center is an invaluable resource, so please take advantage of its services.

Location: MH 228
Hours: Monday – Thursday, 9 a.m. – 8 p.m.; Friday, 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Phone: 256.824.2363
Email: Write2Us@email.uah.edu
Website: www.uah.edu/writing

The UAH Library has an excellent online writing resource guide, as well as an informative portal to Turnitin: http://lib.uah.edu/turnitin/. Use the UAH Library’s portal when you log-in to Turnitin for the first time because it provides a student FAQ list and a walk-through of paper submissions, both of which are quite helpful.

I strongly suggest setting up your account and making a trial submission a few days before you formally submit your first writing assignment. (I have provided a ‘trial submission’ assignment for this purpose.) If you encounter any difficulties signing in, or if you lose the course number and/or password, contact me ASAP via email (sharpa@uah.edu).

Turnitin.com is the for-profit affiliate of plagiarism.org, both of which promote independent thought and the principles of academic integrity. At the Turnitin website, you can find a wealth of information to help you: http://turnitin.com/research_site/e_home.html