You struggle with writing and are having trouble trying to write an essay. You go online to research and discover a webpage that contains all the ideas that you wish to express. You take this essay and use an online paraphrasing tool to reword sections. Your professor stated that you can use a dictionary and a thesaurus. Could this be considered a breach of academic integrity?

Question

Question 5 options:
No, you were allowed to use a dictionary and a thesaurus; using an online paraphrasing tool is the same thing
Yes, even though you changed the wording, using the words and ideas of someone else is a breach of academic integrity
No, you had the same ideas expressed in the essay
Yes, but you changed the words into completely different ones, so your professor will never figure it out

Answer 1

The correct answer is: Yes, even though you changed the wording, using the words and ideas of someone else is a breach of academic integrity.

Even if you paraphrase or change the wording, if the ideas or content are derived from another source without proper attribution, it still constitutes plagiarism. Academic integrity requires you to credit the original source of the ideas, not just the exact words.