Examples of Course-Specific Plagiarism Definitions

In February 2026, the WCU Faculty Senate revised the definition of plagiarism in the academic integrity policy.

In addition to the official WCU definition, the resolution includes examples of what may or may not constitute plagiarism. Faculty may include any or all of these definitions, modifications of these definitions, or their own additional definitions in course-level policies. Such additional course-level policies are intended to add transparency and clearly outline expectations for students.

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to: 

• Submitting all or part of another’s work without proper citation or attribution; 
• Paraphrasing, summarizing, or adapting another’s work without appropriate acknowledgment; 
• Submitting work produced by another individual, human or technological systems such as artificial intelligence, or entity as one’s own; 
• Collaboration or use of resources explicitly prohibited by the instructor, syllabi document, or assignment instructions/ rubric, department, university, in part or whole. 
• Reusing one’s own previously submitted academic work without authorization or disclosure when such reuse misrepresents originality (self-plagiarism); 
• Failing to acknowledge sources of data, analysis, or substantive intellectual assistance when such acknowledgment is required by disciplinary standards or assignment instructions. 

Plagiarism does not include: 

• Minor or unintentional citation or formatting errors that do not materially misrepresent authorship; 
• Use of commonly accepted knowledge within a discipline that does not require citation.