Citation Style and Academic Integrity

Academic Integrity and Citation Styles

You will be expected to use APA formatting and citation style for the group project in this course. For discussion posts and Lesson Quizzes, you should use APA style, but you must at minimum cite any outside sources that you use. Please note the two following important rules with regard to citing sources:

1. Any time you use outside information, you MUST indicate the source you got it from. If you do not cite your source, you will receive a zero for that answer, and further disciplinary action may be taken, especially if it is a repeat offense.
2. All answers should be in your own words to the extent possible. Avoid using direct quotes unless necessary. If you do use direct quotes, you MUST identify them with quotation marks and indicate the page (if an article or book) or paragraph (if web page) where it can be found.

If you have a question about how to cite sources, feel free to contact me—or reach out to your classmates—to get clarification. Some sources may seem hard to figure out how to cite, but there is a proper citation format for pretty much every source of information out there—from a book to a podcast to an email exchange.

Penn State defines academic integrity as "the pursuit of scholarly activity in an open, honest and responsible manner." Academic integrity includes "a commitment not to engage in or tolerate acts of falsification, misrepresentation, or deception." In particular, the University defines plagiarism as "the fabrication of information and citations; submitting other's work from professional journals, books, articles, and papers; submission of other students' papers, lab results or project reports and representing the work as one's own." Penalties for violations of academic integrity may include forfeited assignments, course failure, or disqualification from a degree or certificate program. More information is available by reading the academic integrity policy of Penn State's College of Earth and Mineral Sciences.

Citation and Reference Style

I expect that the text and graphics you submit as part of your assignments are original. I reserve the right to use the plagiarism detection service Turnitin.com to assure the originality of course assignments. You may build upon ideas, words, and illustrations produced by others, but you must acknowledge such contributions formally. Unacknowledged contributions are considered to be plagiarized. This guide explains when and how you should acknowledge the contributions of others to your own work.

Different disciplines adopt different standards for citations and references. Moreover, almost every professional publication enforces its own variation on the standard styles. Papers and projects within the discipline of Geography and within many other Social Sciences require the use of APA format. Since it is the convention of the discipline, it is important for you to know how to use this format. This includes in-text citations (see below), proper formatting of the Reference section and references in this section, the title page, and the running header. You will not need abstracts for these assignments.

APA Style requires the use of in-text citations. You must use in-text citations in your Case Study assignments! This means that you cite any information that you had to look up right after you use that information in the assignment. See this sample student paper from Purdue's Online Writing Laboratory (OWL) for an example of how to use in-text citations (and how to format the Reference section and so forth).

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Penn State also makes available to all faculty and students an iStudy Module entitled Academic Integrity, Plagiarism, and Copyright.