Plagiarism Policy

Plagiarism is the act of taking another person’s writing, conversation, song, or idea and passing it off as your own. This content includes information from web pages, books, television shows, email messages, interviews, articles, artwork, or any other medium. Whenever a student paraphrases, summarizes, or quotes directly another person’s work, an appropriate source citation must be included. It is not enough to list the source at the end of the paper. Rather, the citation must occur at the point of usage. Failure to cite properly someone else’s words or ideas is considered plagiarism.

Similarly, students who re-use their own work from a previous class in a new class violate the plagiarism policy (unless the professor has granted approval).

There are three types of plagiarism:

1. Global Plagiarism:
   Submitting an entire paper, project, or other work obtained from a single source and presenting it as one’s own.
2. Patchwork Plagiarism:
   Combining material, ideas, or language from multiple sources—typically two or three—without proper citation and presenting the compilation as original work.
3. Incremental Plagiarism:
   Incorporating specific phrases, sentences, or ideas from a source into one’s work without appropriate acknowledgment at the point of use.
4. Use of Generative AI Tools:
   Using generative artificial intelligence tools (e.g., ChatGPT, CoPilot, Claude, Gemini, etc) to create any portion of content and submitting that content as one’s own work without disclosure and citation. Any material derived from AI tools must be clearly identified and properly cited in accordance with the AI Technology Policy.

All instances of plagiarism must be reported to the Provost for recording in the student’s permanent file. The following steps will be followed for instances of plagiarism:

• First offense – Student will earn a grade of zero on the assignment that was plagiarized. Many times, failing a final assignment will result in a failure of the entire course.
• Second offense (in any class) – Student will fail the course.
• Third offense (in any class) – Student will fail the course and be suspended from CCBS. A student who has been suspended for plagiarism may petition for readmission after six months.

Instances of plagiarism will be identified on the student’s degree audit and transcript as “Probation.” This probation status will remain for 2 semesters or upon graduation if no additional offenses occur.