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The following excerpt is taken from the UBC
calendar's section on plagiarism.
"Plagiarism. Plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct
in which an individual submits or presents the work of another
person as his or her own. Scholarship quite properly rests upon
examining and referring to the thoughts and writings of others.
However, when excerpts are used in paragraphs or essays, the
author must be acknowledged through footnotes or other accepted
practices. Substantial plagiarism exists when there is no recognition
given to the author for phrases, sentences, and ideas of the
author incorporated in an essay. Complete plagiarism exists when
an entire essay is copied from an author, or composed by another
person, and presented as original work. Students in doubt as
to what constitutes a case of plagiarism should consult their
instructor."
There is no tolerance for plagiarism in any physics course.
However, you may find yourself confused when trying to apply
this policy to an open laboratory format that often involves
working with partners or in groups. I'll offer further guidance
here and you can always ask the instructor if you have doubts.
When working with a partner, the data that you present will
be largely the same since you are working closely together. However,
you must record your own data, do your own graphing etc... It
is unacceptable, for instance, to simply copy down your partner's
data after the experiment is done.
Some of your analysis may also be very similar since some
collaboration on this might be mutually beneficial. However,
I don't want you to simply copy your partner's analysis. For
instance, I expect you to do your own work with computer software,
not simply copy someone else's spreadsheet, graphs or Mathematica
notebook.
You of course can also discuss many other details of the lab
and this discussion will be reflected in some of your ideas.
As a courtesy, it is a good idea to write down an acknowledgement
of someone who has helped you with an idea. Most importantly,
the text in your lab book and final reports must be entirely
your own words. Any deviation from this standard will be
treated very seriously.
Finally, a particularly serious form of dishonesty in a laboratory
setting is the faking of results. The penalty for this out in
the real world is most severe since science is completely dependent
on the accurate reporting of experiments. For an example of how
seriously this issue is taken in Physics, you might want to take
a minute to read about a real-life physics scandal - the
Schon Affair.
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