Plagiarism Policy

Brighton High School’s English Department Plagiarism Policy
Dear Parents and Students:
In keeping with our desire to help students develop a sense of academic integrity, the Brighton high School English Department has established the following policy concerning plagiarism.

The definition of plagiarism is to take ideas, writing, or concepts from another source and pass them off as one’s own. Plagiarism includes, but is not included to:
• Printing off or downloading information from Internet websites and turning it in as if it were your own.
• Buying essays from the Internet and turning them in as your own.
• Accepting information and/or essays or other written work from former and current students and submitting it as your own.
• Using ideas, information, or working from Cliff’s Notes, SparkNotes.com, or other academically oriented supplements without citing (giving credit to) the source.
• Using quotes, statistics, or other information in your writing without citing the source.
• Paraphrasing another person’s ideas, i.e. reading information, and while changing a few words, using it as your own ideas without giving credit to the source.
In other words: taking another’s writing or ideas and using the writing, style, main ideas, or information without citing the original source, or simply putting your name on another’s writing, style, main ideas, or information, is plagiarism.

Please note the following policy and procedures of Brighton High School’s English Department regarding plagiarism:
1. A student who is found cheating on a test or assignment will be given “0” for the assignment. There will be no opportunity to “redo” the test or assignment. They may also lose the opportunity to do extra credit for the class.
2. A student whose major writing assignment—essay or research paper—seems to have been intentionally plagiarized as outlined above will be given a “0” without opportunity to rewrite the assignment.
3. If the student is part of the Honors program, and has cheated or intentionally plagiarized, he or she will be recommended for removal from the program.
4. Students are encouraged to keep all of their writing process—drafts, notes, sources, copies of sources, peer editing sheets—as evidence of their original work.
5. A committee made up of community and faculty members will be in place to review decisions regarding plagiarism and the subsequent consequences, and students may appeal to this committee.
Please sign and date below to indicate that you understand this plagiarism policy.

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