Western Heritage in a Global Context

General Education

Academic Integrity


 On my honor, as an Eckerd College student, I pledge not to lie, cheat, or steal, nor to tolerate those behaviors in others.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity means abiding by the Eckerd College Honor Code. The most common academic forms of violating the honor code are cheating and plagiarism. Cheating includes obtaining information illegitimately, giving others information illegitimately, or acting as an accomplice in a situation of academic dishonesty. Plagiarism is defined as intentionally representing someone else’s work as one’s own. Any misrepresentation of a student’s academic work may be considered academic dishonesty.


III.  Examples of Academic Dishonesty:

 Obtaining Information Illegitimately:

  1. Copying a homework assignment from another student, unless expressly permitted by the instructor.
  2. Working cooperatively on a take-home test or homework or any course assignment, unless expressly permitted by the instructor.
  3. Looking at another student’s test paper during an exam, quiz or other test of individual knowledge.


Giving Information Illegitimately:

  1. Giving your work to another student to be copied, unless expressly permitted by the professor.
  2. Taking a test and then telling students in other sections of the course what is on the test.
  3. Giving or selling your term paper to another student or to a term-paper service.



Complicity in academic dishonesty means that one is involved in academic wrongdoing. Complicity in academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to:

  1. Allowing a student to read from your test paper during the test.
  2. Sharing your term paper with a student who might plagiarize it.



  1. Submitting as your own work an academic exercise (e.g. written work, sculpture, etc.) that has been prepared by someone else.
  2. Submitting as original course work any item that was prepared to meet the requirements of another course.  For example, turning in the same paper, or significant portions of the same paper, for two credit courses (simultaneously or subsequently). The only exception would be if both professors concerned have given prior consent in writing for the student to complete a project that would receive credit in both courses. Such arrangements should be clarified, in writing, with both professors signing off. 
  3. Having someone else take an exam for you.



Plagiarism is passing off the ideas and the words of another person as your own, or using the work of another person without crediting the source. Some examples of plagiarism include the following:

  1. Presenting any information or images as your own without citing the author or the source from which the information was taken.
  2. Intentionally attempting to make the thoughts or works of another appear as your own by altering the word arrangement or paraphrasing or omitting some words, and not citing the author or the source in the body of the text.
  3. Using data not generated by your own research without properly citing the source of the data.
  4. Reprinting someone else’s paper, or any part of another’s paper, and submitting it as your own.



Bribery is offering money or any item of value to a faculty member or anybody else to gain an academic advantage or to improve your grade. 


Improper use of electronically mediated sources, such as Internet sites: 

While the scholarly world benefits from access to materials available through the Internet, email bulletin boards, virtual chat rooms and so forth, the standards of scholarly citation and reference must be observed in all uses of such material. Two of the major organizations that determine the necessary elements of citation—MLA and APA—have issued guidelines.

Refer to the Eckerd College Library website for assistance with citing materials. 


 Guidelines also can be found online at the URLs listed below.



The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) also provides an excellent, up-to-date resource for citing sources using MLA and APA citation styles: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/

Other academic style manuals, such as Chicago and Council of Science Editors formats, may be found in print publications. Diana Hacker’s Writer’s Reference, one of the required texts for Western Heritage in a Global Context, and other classes, includes sections on writing with sources, including information about how to evaluate sources and how to avoid plagiarism. If the AHC finds the student responsible for an instance of academic dishonesty, information to that effect shall be placed on file in the Registrar’s Office, and the sanction will be communicated to the Registrar’s Office for implementation.  If this is the student’s second occurrence of academic dishonesty, the Dean of Faculty will be notified. Normally, the sanction for the second offense, issued through the Dean of Faculty, is suspension from the College for one semester. The third offense will also be communicated to the Dean of Faculty for an additional sanction: normally, expulsion from Eckerd College.

What is WHGC?

Western Heritage in a Global Context (known as WHGC) will engage some of the influential works and ideas of Western civilization in a conversation with important works of non-Western civilizations. We will also listen to voices that have often gone unrecognized in traditional Western Civilization courses. What we envision is a journey through time that creates cross-cultural communication and allows students to consider alternatives to the received wisdom of their own culture.