B(log)SOP

A. Cheating

Students shall not use any unauthorized aids on tests, quizzes, and assigned written exercises or problems (such as homework exercises). “Unauthorized aids” include, but are not limited to, exercise answer sheets or answer sections from text books, other students answers or work, “cheat sheets,” and tools such as analytical lexicons (if instructor has indicated such tools are not to be used). If the instructor indicates that one or any of the above may be used, it is no longer considered “unauthorized.”

While we encourage students to help one another learn, there is a fine line between this and cheating. Students are expected to be mature enough to know the difference. However, if you are unsure, do ask.

B. Plagiarism

1. Students may freely discuss ideas and concepts with others since such discussion is valuable. However, ideas received from others and used in a paper or other written assignment must be properly footnoted or cited so that credit is given to the appropriate source.
2. Text, cassettes and all other sources used by a student must be properly acknowledged by using appropriate documentation (such as a bibliography). This is to be done whether the source is footnoted or not.

3. Any information that is not “common knowledge” which a student uses must be footnoted so that credit is given to the true source. Students often have difficulty distinguishing between common knowledge and “privileged” information when deciding what material to footnote. A general rule to follow is that an idea may be considered “common knowledge” if it is encountered at least three times in separate sources during one’s research (reprints, or the quoting of one source in another, are not considered separate sources). For example, you would not need to cite a reference for the fact that Martin Luther was a German theologian who was a major character in the Reformation. However, if you were to discuss an aspect of his life that scholars disagree on, you would need to footnote that information. Also, if you ever directly copy material from a source, that material must be placed in quotation marks and must be footnoted. Obviously, you should only be quoting short pieces of material (i.e., do not copy an entire article from a Bible Encyclopedia and quote the entire thing as your paper).

The following is AGST-Phils. policy on plagiarism adapted from Vanderbilt University, Asian Theological Seminary and Asia Pacific Theological Seminary. BSOP is a member of the AGST-Phils. consortia of seminaries and thus will adapt the following policy on plagiarism.

Plagiarism is considered a serious violation of academic and ministerial ethics. Plagiarism constitutes stealing the ideas of another and representing them as one’s own. This is just as fundamentally dishonest as stealing someone’s property or money. The faculty wants it to be perfectly clear to the student body that plagiarism will not be tolerated.

There are three kinds of writing that may appear in a paper you submit.

1. Your own analysis, synthesis, and reflection which is captured in your own words and ideas. This is the most valuable kind of writing you can do because it indicates your depth of understanding of a subject and the ability to expand beyond the work of others. I highly recommend that you liberally include thinking at this level in your papers since it will yield the greatest academic and personal benefits.

2. The work of others that you draw on for ideas and concepts. Within your paper you will analyze, synthesize, adapt and paraphrase these ideas and give a citation (usually a footnote) of their source. Since you have not copied the words directly form your sources, you do not need to show these as a quotation. (Note however, that making minor changes in wording or the sequence of ideas from a source does not produce an acceptable paraphrase. Unless the paraphrase clearly represents a rewriting of the material using your own words, it would constitute plagiarism.)

3. The work of others that you copy verbatim from a source. Here, you must indicate that the material is taken directly from your source either by setting it off in quotation marks (for short quotations) or by using an indented paragraph (for long quotations).

When a faculty member encounters plagiarism in a Christian context, it is usually bewildering given the academic honesty that we assume exists among Christian students and even more so for students who are preparing for the ministry. We would like to believe that there are extenuating circumstances or that the student really doesn’t know what constitutes plagiarism and engaged in it unwittingly. The purpose of this discussion is to remove any uncertainty. If you have questions about your use of a source in a paper as to whether you have cited it properly, you should consult your professor (taken from the APTS statement on Plagiarism).