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Charles
Lipson
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E-mail: c-lipson@uchicago.edu Voice: 773.702.8053 Fax: 773.702.1689
Charles Lipson Professor of Political Science University of Chicago 5828 S. University Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 |
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Honesty is important for its own sake, and it's vital for your education—in high school and later in college.. You can't learn how to write if you simply download your papers from the Internet. You can't learn algebra if you copy your problem sets from a friend or an answer book. You can't learn Spanish or chemistry if you don't complete the assignments yourself. You won't really know the materials in high school, and you won't be prepared for college-level work.
The only way to learn is to do your papers, readings, and problem sets yourself. Later, you'll build on what you learned as you face more advanced assignments. If you didn't do the earlier work yourself, you simply won't be prepared for the later assignments, or for more advanced courses..
Even your mistakes can be valuable (and, believe me, we all make them). They'll show you and your teachers where you need more help and more practice. Correcting your missteps is a vital part of learning. That's as true in Spanish as it is in biology.
Cheating denies you all that. It denies you a chance to learn. Even if you aren't caught (and you may well be!), you'll still miss what is most valuable about college: getting a real education. The only way to get that education is to work honestly. It's the high road to developing your own best values, too.
What does it mean to do honest work? The answer boils down to just three core principles:
- When you say you did the work yourself, you actually did it.
- When you rely on others’ work, you cite it. When you use their words, you quote them openly and accurately, and you cite them, too.
- When you present research materials, you present them fairly and truthfully.
That’s true whether the research involves data, documents, or the writings
of other scholars.
—from Chapter 1, Doing Honest Work in College
Of course, there are plenty of detailed rules about academic honesty. Textbooks are filled with them. But ultimately they boil down to just three core principles. These principles are easy to remember, and they apply to everybody in the university, students or teachers alike. Follow them and you'll do fine.
In talks with high school students, I explain what these principles mean, why they matter, and how they affect student papers, tests, and lab assignments. I highlight the proper use of the Internet, a major source of potential problems. In Q&A, we talk about issues that affect students directly, from writing papers to handling lab assignments.
| Talks on Academic Honesty |
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My talks on academic honesty are based on more than twenty-five years of teaching. I am a professor at the University of Chicago and the author of Doing Honest Work in College (University of Chicago Press, 2004) and How to Write a BA Thesis (University of Chicago Press, 2005), as well as books on international politics. I have served as director of graduate studies in political science and am currently director of undergraduate studies. |
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Besides talks to high school students, I
also give talks to university students, faculty, advisers, and administrators. |
| For more resources about academic honesty and teaching, see my Web page: Reading, Writing, and Plagiarism |
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