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English Language Institute: Academic Integrity

Ethics of research and information seeking

Incorrect paraphrase

Original text:
Colleges and their IA [information assurance] programs need to have strong policies in place to cover student usage of virtual labs, network access, and for how to handle academic misconduct. These policies must be enforced consistently to minimize legal repercussions but schools need to be prepared and willing to deal with student lawsuits over academic discipline (Livermore, p. 69).

  Livermore, J. A. (2009, November). Incorporating academic integrity into an online Information
   Assurance program. Business Education Innovation Journal, 1(2), 68-73.

Incorrect paraphrase:

Universities and their IA departments should have really good procedures to cover use of labs and networks, and handle bad behavior. These policies must be enforced to keep from getting sued.

Why is this wrong?

Universities and their IA departments should have really good policies to cover use of labs and networks, and handle bad behavior. These policies must be enforced to keep from getting sued.

Minor changes to vocabulary
“Colleges and their IA programs” – “Universities and their IA departments”
“strong policies” – “really good policies”
Mistakes in paraphrase
"Program” does not equal “department”
“Labs and networks”
The original was about virtual labs, not actual physical spaces
The original dealt with network access, not networks in general
Unclear paraphrase
“Academic misconduct” is a specific form of conduct; “bad behavior” might mean anything from hacking or cheating (forms of academic dishonesty) to eating in the labs or using the labs to watch porn
No citation for the statement!

Correct paraphrasing

Original text:


Colleges and their IA [information assurance] programs need to have strong policies in place to cover student usage of virtual labs, network access, and for how to handle academic misconduct. These policies must be enforced consistently to minimize legal repercussions but schools need to be prepared and willing to deal with student lawsuits over academic discipline

Correct paraphrase:

  Even the existence of rigorous policies that define the appropriate use of university resources and consequences for misuse will not prevent legal challenges from students seeking to avoid the enforcement of those policies (Livermore, p. 70).

First, identify the concept you want to convey – in this case, the fact that students have brought lawsuits against IA programs that have sanctioned them for academic misconduct
Then create a paraphrase of that concept that correctly conveys the information in the original statement, yet does so with major, substantially different words
 
The paraphrase must cite the original source of the information