All work submitted for evaluation in a graduate program, including research theses and essays, must represent only the work of the student unless indicated otherwise.  Material taken from the work of others must be properly acknowledged.  Concerns about the propriety of obtaining outside assistance or acknowledging sources should be referred to the instructor of the course before the work commences.

The grade for an essay, thesis, or similar writing assignment in which plagiarism occurs is “F.”  The student guilty of plagiarism may suffer the additional penalty of failure in the course or more serious consequences, including dismissal from the program.

By affixing one’s name to an essay, thesis, or other composition, a student pledges that the submitted work is entirely his/her own.  Civil law and moral conduct recognize the rights of an author to his/her choice of words, arrangement of words, and sequence of ideas.  Hence, a writer’s unacknowledged use of any material—copyrighted or not—by another author is actually a combination of stealing and lying.  It might be added that the unacknowledged use of copyrighted materials constitutes a serious legal offense as well as a violation of moral conduct.