All academic institutions have policies and rules about appropriate behaviour by students. University of Waterloo’s is found here. Such policies address general conduct as a student, and specific conduct when it comes to academic integrity. Every student should read their relevant policy.
There are basic principles for you to be aware of. Some of which are:
Every student is supposed to have the same opportunities as every other student when it comes to performing on an assessment - a fair and level playing field.
Students are judged on their own contributions, their own ideas, their own answers.
Students are expected to adhere to any conditions stipulated in the assessments with respect to how things are done and what is done
Unless you say otherwise, it is assumed that what you are handing in (results, ideas, thoughts etc.) are your own, created by you
You can cross the line in many ways and it does not matter if you do it by accident. If in doubt, ask your instructor, and just because it is ‘ok’ in one course, does not make it OK when it comes to the official policy! The official policy is the one that counts.
The university assumes you know what academic misconduct is and you are held accountable - ‘I did not know I was not supposed to do that’ ‘I thought it was ok’ ‘Others do it’ are not excuses.
Some practices allowed in high school for which ‘I am sorry’ ‘I did not know’ ‘I will not do it again’ were get out of jail cards, are not handled the same way - university is not high school.
What others do does not matter, it is what you do and you are guilty if you cheat or help someone else to cheat.
‘You made it easy for me to cheat’, ’It is your fault I cheated’ - do not fly either.
You give information (questions, answers, data) to others so that they can get an unfair advantage.
You use information (questions, answer, data) given to you by others so that you can get an unfair advantage.
you present ideas/data which are not yours as if they are your own
You misrepresent what the data means
Often students do not cite work or give appropriate credit where ideas come from. Remember, if you do not give credit, it is assumed that you are presenting the idea or work as your own invention or result and you are trying to get credit/marks for someone else’s work! This is bad.
You need to know what ‘paraphrase’ means. Paraphrasing does not mean simple changes in a sentence - nouns or verbs; changing turtle for dove, he for she, past for future tense. You need to put it in your own words to clarify the point, explain it differently. You do not change the meaning, but you enhance through paraphrasing. Changing turtle for dove does NOT do this.
When you basically ‘borrow’ ideas without enhancement, you need to put the material ‘borrowed’ in quotes. If you blah blah blah blah (so and so, 2017); this is assumed to paraphrasing or summarizing and it is assumed that you are providing ‘added value’ in your paraphrasing or summarization. If blah blah blah blah is basically copied, it needs to be “blah blah blah blah” (so and so, 2017). And remember: a simple change of turtle to dove or simple re-ordering of words is considered ‘copying’.
The university tracks offences to catch repeaters and the penalties increase with the severity and number of occurrences. It is common practice to get a zero on the assessment, plus another mark penalty on your first offence. You will rarely hear: ‘ok, no marks off this time, do not do it again’.