The beginning of the semester is always a great time to help students understand acceptable academic behaviors at Ferris. Possible strategies for promoting Academic Integrity include the following:

1. Take extra time to clearly explain and define what plagiarism and cheating are. This eliminates students’ excuses of I didn’t know that!


2. Be clear about not accepting academic misconduct in your course.


3. Explain and refer to Ferris’ policies on academic misconduct. Refer students to the Code of Student Community Standards on-line. They can find it on the Ferris’ homepage under Quick Links.


4. Provide information through handouts, brochures, bookmarks, or websites which will help students better understand properly quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing information from sources. This should include methods and/or references for citing the sources.


5. Remind students during intense times of the semester (i.e. mid-terms, project completion, finals) that academic misconduct will result in some form of disciplinary action.


6. Make sure that your syllabus (or possible syllabus amendment) makes a clear statement of what possible penalties for violations you and/or your department enacts if a student is found responsible for academic misconduct.

Worried about creating or re-creating plagiarism brochures? Visit the Writing Center and browse through their helpful links.