Learning Success Guide: Strategies for Thinking, Learning, and Writing

MWCC's Academic Integrity Policy explains cheating, plagiarism, and fabrication, examples of each type of academic dishonesty so that you become aware if your prior practices will become a problem in the future, and the rights and responsibilities of students and faculty should a case occur. 

Understand that not all plagiarism is the result of ill intent. Fear of failure, confusion over content, and laziness can also lead students to violate academic integrity. Collectivist cultures that emphasize knowledge as a state or public contribution will also clash against western capitalist notions of intellectual property as privately owned. But even knowing the roots of academic dishonesty does not excuse you from accountability; it simply means that you must be even more watchful.

MWCC Academic Integrity Policy (PDF)

Here are five tips that can help you avoid falling into the traps that make academic dishonesty seem like a good option.

1. Plan and Strategize Ahead: Use your calendar to plan out work, family, class, and study times, as well as empty times that you can use to relocate priority events in the case of illness or emergency. Include assignment deadlines, and devote enough study periods to getting those projects done as early as you can. This way, you'll more likely be ahead of the class, and able to build in extra time for study and projects if needed. See our page on "Time & Effort Management" for more details. 
2. Study the Culture of the Discipline: Different disciplines use language and documentation styles in different ways. Read the articles published in your field, and learn about the documentation style preferred in your discipline. You can learn more about documentation on our "Writing" page under the "Global Issues: Development" or "Local Issues" subcategories.
3. Develop Learning Skills: The stronger your learning skills, the more likely you are to avoid the fear of not knowing or the confusion that often causes students to cheat. Several tabs in this guide are devoted to developing your learning styles and skills, including "Visual Strategies", "Auditory / Listening Strategies", "Reading Strategies", and "Kinesthetic Strategies".
4. Learn Proper Source Integration: Learning about documentation is only part of learning about source integration. Sources get incorporated into a paragraph in different ways for different reasons. You can learn more about documentation on our "Writing" page under the "Global Issues: Development" or "Local Issues" subcategories.
5. Communicate: If you are worried about content, scared of failure, or just unsure of yourself, you can always talk with people who can help: Your professor, advisor, the Learning Success Center, the Thrive Program, and Student Services are all people and places that can help or can connect you with help to meet these challenges.