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Plagiarism & Collusion

Statement on Scholastic Responsibility

According to the 2025–6 University Catalog, (sec. 11–401.7), “academic misconduct” covers a range of offenses, including “plagiarism,” which occurs:

  1. when a person represents another’s material as their own work without attribution;
  2. when a person misrepresents citation or attribution for purposes of an academic advantage; or,
  3. when a person submits essentially the same work for two assignments without the permission of the Faculty Member.

“Collusion” is also academic misconduct. The University Catalog defines “collusion” as “unauthorized collaboration with another student or students.”

In conformity with this policy and in compliance with the University of Texas procedure for handling cases of academic misconduct, any time an instructor finds plausible evidence that a student in a Rhetoric and Writing class has purposefully and without prior instructor consultation or approval committed plagiarism and/or collusion, the incident will be reported to Student Conduct and Academic Integrity in the Office of the Dean of Students. More information about how such allegations are handled can be found at the end of this statement.

What immediately follows is a fuller description of what constitutes plagiarism and collusion in the context of a writing-intensive class, with some advice about how to avoid both.

Plagiarism

  • You commit plagiarism if you purposefully and without prior instructor approval fail to acknowledge the sources of any information in your paper that is not either common knowledge or personal knowledge. Common knowledge includes facts, dates, events, information, and concepts that belong generally to the educated public. Even if you use a reference book to discover the dates of George Washington's presidency, for example, you should not acknowledge the source because those dates fall into the range of common historical knowledge. If you borrow material that interprets or comments on Washington's presidency, however, unless your instructor says otherwise, you should cite your source. You can acknowledge a source through in-text citations, attribution lines (for example, "George Will observes in Men at Work . . ."), footnotes, or other forms of documentation approved by your instructor.
  • You commit plagiarism if you purposefully present a direct quotation as if it were your own writing, without attributing the words to someone else, without placing quotation marks around the quoted material, or without indenting when quoting longer passages. Without the attribution, quotation marks, or indention, a passage copied directly from a source might be considered plagiarized even if it is followed by an in-text citation or a footnote: the citation or footnote acknowledges that you have a source but it does not indicate that you have borrowed someone else's exact words.
  • You commit plagiarism if you purposefully borrow the original words of your source without making substantial changes to their expression. Some students think that they can avoid a charge of plagiarism by changing a few words in each sentence they copy, or by rearranging the shape of phrases or the order of sentences in a paragraph. This is not true. When you take notes, you must be careful to put ideas in your own words, or to use direct quotation when you are relying on phrases borrowed directly from a source.
  • You commit plagiarism if you purposefully borrow the ideas, examples, or structure of your source without acknowledging it. You can be guilty of plagiarism if you systematically borrow the ideas and organization of a source—even if the language of your piece is substantially original. A student who, for example, reports on a major news event by using exactly the same ideas in the same order as they appear in an article in Time or Newsweek might be accused of plagiarism.
  • You commit plagiarism if you take, buy, or receive a paper written by someone else and present it as your own.
  • You commit plagiarism if you use one paper for two different courses, or re-use a paper previously submitted for credit, without the prior approval of both instructors.

If you want to use words, ideas, or the structure of a selection such as the passage below from Harper's, you may do so correctly in two ways.

Medical costs will bankrupt this country if they continue on their current trajectory. And there are no data to demonstrate that improved management techniques will solve the problem. "Managed care" and "managed competition" might save money in the short run (though the examples of some other managed industries-such as the utilities and airlines do not inspire confidence). But the bulk of the savings achieved by Health Maintenance Organizations has been achieved by cutting back on expensive, unprofitable facilities such as burn centers, neonatal-intensive-care units, emergency rooms, and the like. In other words, HMOs conduct what amounts to a hidden form of health-care rationing-confident that municipal and university hospitals are still around to pick up the slack. (Gaylin 62)

From: Gaylin, Willard M.D. "Faulty Diagnosis: Why Clinton's Health-Care Plan Won't Cure What Ails Us." Harper's (Oct. 1993): 57-64.

You may quote from the passage directly, using appropriate citations and quotation marks, or (when the quotation is lengthy) indention. For example:

Willard Gaylin, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia Medical School, maintains that "medical costs will bankrupt this country if they continue on their current trajectory. And there are no data to demonstrate that improved management techniques will solve the problem" (62).

You may report the information in your own words, acknowledging Gaylin as your source and using an in-text citation to indicate the location of the passage:

Doctor Gaylin, for instance, does not believe that the improved management techniques proposed by the Clinton administration will solve the problem of rising medical costs, because the cost-cutting measures followed by HMOs under the current system will not be feasible when all Americans belong to such health collectives (62).

You may not simply change a few words or phrases and call the material your own, even if you acknowledge a source. The following passage based on Gaylin's original would be considered plagiarism, with or without an in-text citation or footnote:

Medical expenses will ruin America if we stay on our current path. There is no evidence that better management techniques will fix the trouble. "Managed care" may save some money today, but the way things are we will still pay for expensive, unprofitable care tomorrow.

You may not call the work your own if you change the language in the original passage but closely follow its organization, ideas, and examples. Most instructors would consider the following passage too much like Gaylin's original to be considered acceptable as a student's work:

Our country will go broke if it follows on its current path. And there is no information that says we can get out of this mess through better management. HMOs are successful today because they leave the county and teaching hospitals to fund costly, unprofitable specialized care (Gaylin 62).

Collusion

  • You commit collusion if you allow someone else to write your papers, presenting the work as your own, in a deliberate effort to deceive your instructor.
  • You also commit collusion if you allow someone else to rewrite or compose entire sections of your papers. It is scholastically dishonest for students to employ tutors to correct, edit, or modify essays in any substantive way. The same reservations and restrictions apply, within reason, to any outside assistance you may receive from a parent, friend, roommate, or academic tutor. Any changes, deletions, rearrangements, additions, or corrections made in your essays should represent your own work. If you want assistance in a course beyond that which your instructor can offer in class or in office hours, you may use the DRW's Undergraduate Writing Center (UWC) in the PCL or remote locations or the Sanger Learning Center in Jester. Tutors at these facilities are trained to comment on essays and to offer advice without editing or rewriting papers.
  • You commit collusion if, without prior instructor approval and without citation, you use generative artificial intelligence (such as Chat GPT or Gemini) to write segments of your paper, to compose the entire paper, to provide source material, or to carefully plan your argument. Generative AI can be useful to writers, helping them to come up with ideas and to reimagine what they’ve already written, but these tools should be used responsibly. Check your syllabus for an official policy about how to use and cite AI in assignments for this particular class. Talk with your instructor if you have any questions about your intended use of AI. Most importantly, cite the AI that you’ve used, indicating to your reader when you’re quoting directly or relying substantially on material you did not invent or compose. Here are a few resources about how to attribute AI-generated material when using the following citation styles: AP Style, Chicago Manual of Style (requires EID login), MLA Style. And here is more information about UT Sage, a UT-sponsored generative AI tutor intended to promote responsible use of AI in classroom circumstances.

Penalties

If you have any questions or doubts about the way you are employing sources or getting assistance in writing a given paper, consult your instructor before handing it in. The penalties for plagiarism or collusion can be severe. And these penalties are not up to your instructor. Each allegation of plagiarism or collusion must be handled through the office of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity (SCAI). Faculty are required to report all incidents of plagiarism to SCAI.  SCAI will review the report and consult with the faculty member, as needed. SCAI will provide the student with an opportunity to hear and respond to the allegation(s). Other witnesses — including faculty members — may be invited to participate as evidence is collected. SCAI will review all facts and evidence provided by the faculty members and determine an outcome.