University of Texas at San Antonio students wanted to draft an honor code that discouraged cheating and plagiarizing.

Unfortunately, the student committee’s results lifted sections of Brigham Young University’s honor code that the UofT students found on-line.

Even the definition of plagiarism was, well, plagiarized.

Akshay Thusu, the student in charge of the honor code project, said it was an oversight.

BYU credited Clemson University’s Center for Academic Integrity as a key source, but UT-San Antonio’s draft failed to do so. That will be corrected, Thusu said.

For example, the draft honor code at San Antonio defines:

Inadvertent Plagiarism. Inadvertent plagiarism involves the inappropriate, but nondeliberate, use of another’s words, ideas, or data without appropriate attribution, failure to follow established rules for documenting sources or from being insufficiently careful in research and writing.

Brigham Young’s honor code includes a similar definition:

Inadvertent Plagiarism: Inadvertent plagiarism involves the inappropriate, but nondeliberate, use of another’s words, ideas, or data without proper attribution. Inadvertent plagiarism usually results from an ignorant failure to follow established rules for documenting sources or from simply being insufficiently careful in research and writing.

As you may have noticed this entire article is plagiarized.

Sources:

Headline: UPI

1st Paragraph: AP

2nd Paragraph: Newsbusters

3rd Paragraph: SA Express-News

4th Paragraph: Kansas City Star

5th Paragraph: Austin American Statesman

6th and 7th: Chronicle of Higher Education

More

The honor code itself (PDF)

Honor code committee website