Plagiarism is a form of Academic Dishonesty and intellectual theft that violates long held and widely recognized principles of academic integrity. Plagiarism may occur whether the student intended to plagiarize or not (“Intentional Plagiarism” and “Inadvertent Plagiarism”); therefore, familiarity with research, citation, and writing requirements is vital for students to ensure they are completing and submitting honest work. Plagiarism may occur with respect to unpublished as well as published material. This includes the act of copying another student’s work or some other unpublished document and submitting the work as one’s own without proper attribution. Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to, failing to properly credit or cite sources, having someone else complete assigned work, or utilizing generative AI or software/programs like ChatGPT for essays, projects or other assignments or assessments (see below).
According to the University of Oxford's Students' Website, plagiarism is defined as follows: "Presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition, as is the use of material generated wholly or in part through use of artificial intelligence...Plagiarism can also include re-using your own work without citation...The necessity to acknowledge others’ work or ideas applies not only to text, but also to other media, such as computer code, illustrations, graphs etc. It applies equally to published text and data drawn from books and journals, and to unpublished text and data, whether from lectures, theses or other students’ essays. You must also attribute text, data or other resources downloaded from websites" (“Plagirism”).
Plagiarism can take many forms, including intentional or unintentional plagiarism, encompassing whether or not the student intended to plagiarize. If you are wondering whether plagiarism, and the corresponding consequences, can take place without the student intending to plagiarize, the answer is yes. The following definitions from Harvard University's College Writing Program's website quoted below should help students understand the different forms of plagiarism—all of which center on not properly citing or acknowledging sources—so that they can avoid all forms of plagiarism in their work.
- "Verbatim Plagiarism: If you copy language word for word from another source and use that language in your paper, you are plagiarizing verbatim" (“What Constitutes Plagiarism?”). This is straight-forward plagiarism often occurs when a student copies and pastes a statement from another source and fails to provide proper citation.
- "Mosaic Plagiarism: If you copy bits and pieces from a source (or several sources), changing a few words here and there without either adequately paraphrasing or quoting directly, the result is mosaic plagiarism" (“What Constitutes Plagiarism?”). This type of plagiarism often occurs when a student strings together statements or ideas from multiple sources and fails to provide proper citations, believing that putting others' ideas together in a unique sequence is sufficient to avoid plagiarism.
- "Inadequate Paraphrase: When you paraphrase, your task is to distill the source's ideas in your own words. It's not enough to change a few words here and there and leave the rest; instead, you must completely restate the ideas in the passage in your own words. If your own language is too close to the original, then you are plagiarizing, even if you do provide a citation" (“What Constitutes Plagiarism?”). This type of plagiarism often occurs when a student fails to use quotes or provide proper citations due to the assumption that changing a few words, while still leaving the majority of the original author's statements intact, is sufficient to avoid plagiarism. Students must put another author's ideas or words completely into their own words rather than simply change a few words, and still, of course, provide proper citation.
- "Uncited Paraphrase: When you use your own language to describe someone else's idea, that idea still belongs to the author of the original material. Therefore, it's not enough to paraphrase the source material responsibly; you also need to cite the source, even if you have changed the wording significantly" (“What Constitutes Plagiarism?”).). This type of plagiarism is essentially idea plagiarism and often occurs when a student takes an idea (or ideas) from another source and fails to provide proper citation or acknowledgement. While there are some ideas or facts that do not need to be cited due to their long-standing universal acknowledgment (i.e., if stating that the earth rotates around the sun, no citation is needed), it is always better to provide a citation or check with your teacher ahead of time if you are in doubt as to whether or not a citation is needed.
- "Uncited Quotation: When you put source material in quotation marks in your essay, you are telling your reader that you have drawn that material from somewhere else. But it's not enough to indicate that the material in quotation marks is not the product of your own thinking or experimentation: You must also credit the author of that material and provide a trail for your reader to follow back to the original document" (“What Constitutes Plagiarism?”). This type of plagiarism often occurs when a student puts quotes around large portions of his or her work and fails to properly cite the source, incorrectly assuming that quotations without proper citations are sufficient to avoid plagiarism.
- "Using Material from Another Student's Work: In some courses you will be allowed or encouraged to form study groups, to work together in class generating ideas, or to collaborate on your thinking in other ways. Even in those cases, it's imperative that you understand whether all of your writing must be done independently, or whether group authorship is permitted. Most often, even in courses that allow some collaborative discussion, the writing or calculations that you do must be your own. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't collect feedback on your writing from a classmate or a writing tutor; rather, it means that the argument you make (and the ideas you rely on to make it) should either be your own or you should give credit to the source of those ideas" (Harvard University). This type of plagiarism often occurs when a student turns in work done by another student when the teacher required each student to complete his or her own work. 1
Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for crafting or producing responses, essays, papers, projects, or other assignments is not allowed. Use of generative AI falls under the category of Academic Dishonesty and will result in an automatic zero with three demerits. Due to generative AI’s general ease of accessibility and difficulty to be detected, papers will routinely be run through generative AI detection software.
1 “Plagiarism.” University of Oxford, https://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/guidance/skills/plagiarism. Accessed 08 July 2025.
“What Constitutes Plagiarism?: Harvard Guide to Using Sources.” Harvard University, https://usingsources.fas.harvard.edu/what-constitutes-plagiarism-0. Accessed 08 July 2025.
In Rhetoric School, plagiarism results in an automatic zero for the assignment without the possibility of resubmission. Plagiarism also results in three demerits. Additional consequences, such as suspension, may be implemented depending on the severity of the situation. Repeated instances of plagiarism may result in expulsion from Geneva.
As a final note on Academic Dishonesty, students are encouraged to remember the many verses from Scripture addressing the call to speak and live honestly and truthfully. Cheating and plagiarism are forms of lying and deceit and should be avoided at all costs. Far better to receive a lower grade for honest, hard work than a higher grade resulting from dishonesty, for the Lord sees and knows all things. Although cheating on an assignment may seem like a small matter, remember the words of Christ: “One who faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much” (Luke 16:10).