Academic Integrity.   We expect the highest ethical behavior from students. Plagiarism and other forms of academic misconduct will not be tolerated.  Penalties range from failure of the assignment, to failure of the class. 

The Western Connecticut State University 2005-2006 Student Handbook  describes the following "Prohibited Conduct" in Part III of the "Student Code of Conduct and Statement of Judicial Procedures":

"1.  Acts of dishonesty, including but not  limited to  the         following:

a.  Academic misconduct, including all forms of cheating and plagiarism. Academic misconduct includes but is not limited to, providing or receiving assistance from another, in a manner not authorized by the instructor, in the creation of work to be submit­ted for academic evaluation (including papers, projects and examinations). Plagiarism is defined as presenting, as one's own, the ideas or words of another person, for academic evaluation, without proper acknowledgment. Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to: (i) copying sentences, phrases, paragraphs, tables, figures, or data directly or in slightly modified form from a book, article, or other academic source without using quotation marks or giving proper acknowledgment to the original author or source; (ii) copying information from Internet Web sites and submitting it as one's own work; (iii) buying papers for the purpose of turning them in as one's own work; and (iv) selling or lending papers to another person for submission by that other person, for academic evaluation, as his or her own work” (p. 84).
 

Do not let a friend write your paper for you.  Do not turn in someone else's work.  Do not download a paper off the internet and turn it in as your own.  Do not cut and past from web pages without attribution.  You may no longer claim ignorance of the rules on plagiarism.  It is your duty as a student, scholar, and member of this community to be responsible for your own work.