Members of the Luther Seminary community are expected to conduct themselves responsibly and honestly in academic matters. Cheating and plagiarism are serious offenses against this expectation and are subject to disciplinary action.
What is plagiarism? “Plagiarism is the dishonest act of presenting the words or thoughts of another writer as if they were your own ... If you quote from anything at all … you must put quotation marks around it, or set it off from your text. If you summarize or paraphrase an author’s words, you must clearly indicate where the summary or paraphrase begins and ends ... In every instance you must formally acknowledge the written source from which you took the material.” [Quoted from James A.W. Heffernan and John E. Lincoln, Writing: A College Handbook (New York: W. W. Norton, 1982), p.547.]
Examples of plagiarism include:
Copying from a source text (whether online or offline) without proper acknowledgment
Turning in another student’s work as your own with or without that student’s knowledge
Copying materials word-for-word from a source text, supplying proper documentation, but leaving out quotation marks
Paraphrasing materials from a source text without appropriate documentation
Turning in a paper copied from a website
Recycling your own work from a previous assignment, without permission of the instructor or proper citation
If instances of cheating or plagiarism are detected, one of the disciplinary actions shall follow: either the instructor records a failure for the assignment or examination, or the instructor records a failure for the course. In either case, the instructor shall bring the matter to the Office of the Academic Dean, an indication that plagiarism has occurred will be placed in the student’s permanent record and the question whether further disciplinary action should be considered will be determined in consultation with the instructor and the Office of the Academic Dean.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
AI tools are being integrated into all areas of our lives, including learning. One of the governing values for students, staff and faculty is to promote a spirit of excellence and inquiry. Guided by this value, it is the expectation of the Luther Seminary community that through their course work students develop critical thinking skills and the capacity to develop their own theological, biblical, and theoretical arguments. Students will work with various tools as they develop these skills and capacities, yet the work they turn in and/or present to professors must be their original work. Individual professors may give more guidance to their expectations regarding the use of AI tools within their particular courses.
Students may not use AI to write academic content and represent that content as their own work. This includes the prohibition that students may not use AI to write the entirety of or portions of:
Essays or papers
Tests and test questions
Online postings, including responses to other students
Responses to books or articles
Individual professors may give additional guidance for specific courses.