Academic Integrity

Abbotsford Virtual School sets high standards for its students and expects that all students maintain a high standard of academic integrity. Student work must be original and sources (where information and key ideas were located) must be cited appropriately. Student work that is not cited appropriately may be determined to be plagiarized.

Plagiarism is commonly referred to as “the passing off of another person’s work as one’s own, whether deliberate or accidental. Accidental plagiarism is usually the result of a poor citation or referencing or poor preparation or a misunderstanding of plagiarism. Deliberate plagiarism is an attempt to claim another person’s work as one’s own”

At Abbotsford Virtual School, student work submitted for English, English Literature or Social Studies courses, is routinely checked by a plagiarism identification program called Unicheck.

Abbotsford Virtual School expects all students to understand plagiarism and how to correctly cite another’s ideas and words. Students are advised to take some time to visit the following internet sites for information and instructions before starting to submit assignments in Abbotsford Virtual School courses.

To learn more about how to correctly cite another’s ideas or words be sure to check one or more of these sites:

  • http://www.wadsworth.com/english_d/special_feature/plagiarism/definition.html
  • http://memorial.library.wisc.edu/citing.htm
  • MLA style: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01
  • APA style : http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01 

In addition, students may want to learn how to identify a reputable internet resource :

  • http://lib.nmsu.edu/instruction/evalcrit.html