Lake Central High School's plagiarism policy outlines what constitutes plagiarism and the penalties for committing it. Plagiarism includes using others' work, words, or ideas without proper citation. The policy defines two levels of plagiarism - minimal and substantial. Penalties become more severe for repeated or substantial offenses and can include failure of assignments, notification of parents, and disciplinary action. The policy aims to educate students on avoiding plagiarism through proper citation and use of quotes, paraphrases, summaries, and facts.

1. LAKE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL'S PLAGIARISM POLICY
Generally speaking, plagiarism is the use, without acknowledgment, of information, ideas, or actual writing produced by
someone else. A plagiarized assignment is not the student's own work; it cannot be accepted as fulfillment of an assignment.
Furthermore, plagiarism suggests an attempt to deceive and is, therefore, morally unacceptable.
Plagiarism is of serious concern to Lake Central High School's staff and administration. It is also a major concern to the nation's
outstanding universities. Widely accepted policies on plagiarism serve as a basis for Lake Central High School's plagiarism
policy.
Plagiarism Policy
1. The plagiarism policy and a handout demonstrating strategies to avoid plagiarism will be distributed each year to all
English students by the English Department. Upon the receipt of the handout, each student will sign a paper indicating
that he/she has received the information. A copy of this sheet will be filed in the principal's office.
2. Description of Plagiarism:
Minimal Plagiarism -- Typically found as, but not limited to: copying a phrase or several phrases, without using
quotation marks or citing sources, etc.
Substantial Plagiarism -- Typically found as, but not limited to: using substantial amounts of information from source
but not citing the sources; copying word for word (i.e., quoting) a paragraph or lengthier passage without using
quotation marks and/or citing the source; copying substantial passages almost word for word and treating the material
as paraphrase or as original thinking, or copying partially, substantially, or in its entirety, a published article or another
writer's work.
3. Penalties will include the following:
FIRST OFFENSE (Minimal Plagiarism)
A warning by the teacher, a record made of the incident (in the student's school and writing file), parent notification,
and a lower grade on the assignment.
FIRST OFFENSE (Substantial Plagiarism)
A failure on the assignment, a record made of the incident (in the student's school and writing file), and parent
notification. (The finding of plagiarism may be verified by a committee consisting of a principal, the department
chairman, and the teacher.)
SECOND OFFENSE (Plagiarism of any kind)
Disciplinary action taken by the principal, a failure on the assignment and, possibly, an "F" for the nine weeks, a record
made of the incident (in the student's school and writing file), and parent notification. (The finding of plagiarism may
be verified as noted above.
Plagiarism records will be not annually purged. A student's plagiarism record will apply through his/her tenure at Lake
Central. EXAMPLE: A student who receives a first offense warning during his/her freshman year will be subject to the
second offense penalties any year thereafter.

2. STRATEGIES TO AVOID PLAGIARISM
The following paragraphs have been created for this exercise on plagiarism. We will pretend that they are from The
History of Freedom by Ellen Jones, page 24.
The term Bill of Rights, or Declaration of Rights, refers to a document that guarantees the personal rights of
individual citizens. In 1789, at the beginning of the French Revolution, the French people adopted the
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. In this document, the representatives of the French people
set forth what they hoped to gain from the revolution: religious freedom, freedom of speech and of the press,
and personal security. These ideals later spread over Europe, but the actual Declaration of Rights was
abandoned in France as the French government continued to change.
In 1789, the new United States of America adopted a constitution, and it remains in force to this day. At first,
however, the Constitution guaranteed few personal freedoms, and therefore, some states were unwilling to
accept it. The problem was solved in 1791 by the addition of ten amendments to the Constitution. The
amendments became know as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights limits the power of the national government
to take away certain freedoms, such as freedom of speech and of assembly, freedom of religion, and freedom
from unreasonable searches and seizures. Since 1791, sixteen more amendments have been added to the
Constitution for a total of twenty-six, but only the first ten are known as the Bill of Rights.
If you are using the above passage in a term paper or report, you would have four acceptable ways to incorporate the
information and ideas into your own writing: quotation, paraphrase, summary, and the use of data.
QUOTATION: If you use the writer's text word for word, you are quoting, and you must use quotation marks. You may
uses a writer's sentence, or several sentences, or you may take part of the writer's sentence and insert it into a
sentence of your own. In addition to using quotation marks, you must also give credit to your source.
Example: "The Bill of Rights limits the power of the national government to take away certain freedoms, such as
freedom of speech and of assembly, freedom of religion, and freedom from unreasonable searches and
seizures" (Jones 24).
Example: The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen was adopted two years before the American Bill
of Rights took effect, but ironically, while the Bill of Rights is still in effect today, "the actual Declaration of
Rights was abandoned in France as the French government continued to change" (Jones 24).
PARAPHRASE: If you put the author's sentence into your own words, you are not quoting and you do not use
quotation marks. However, you must still give credit to your source.
Example: The rights of individual citizens are, in some places, protected by a document known as a Bill of Rights or a
Declaration of Rights (Jones 24).
SUMMARY: You may wish to summarize all or part of a passage. Since you are taking your information or ideas from
someone else, you must give credit to your source.
Example: In both France and the United States, documents guaranteeing the rights of citizens were adopted in the late
eighteenth century (Jones 24).
USE OF DATA: You may not need anything from this passage except a single fact or number. You may isolate
numbers and facts from a passage and use them for your own purpose. Any time you use a number or fact from
another writer's work, you must give credit to your source.
Example: Twenty-six amendments have been added to the Constitution (Jones 24).
Example: Other Europeans adopted the ideals of the French Revolution (Jones 24).
COMMON KNOWLEDGE: Information that is common knowledge need not be credited. It can be difficult to determine
just what is commonly known. However, it may be safe to assume that most American adults know that they have
freedom of religion.
Example: The citizens of the United States have freedom of religion.
(no citation necessary)