Student resources, Graduate Honor System

Students have access to a wide range of resources to help them avoid Honor Code violations and to report suspected violations.

Graduate students can also volunteer to serve as panelists, associate chairs, facilitators, or the chair of the Honor System.

Many resources can help you avoid plagiarism in your writing:

• Citation and style manuals available through University Libraries
• The Writing Center provides free assistance with a variety of writing projects
• Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing, prepared by Dr. Donald McKeon
  
• Avoiding Plagiarism: A guide for students at Virginia Tech
• The iThenticate software is available for you at no charge to check your work for potential (unintentional) plagiarism before submission. iThenticate similarity reports are useful to identify potentially problematic areas of insufficient citation. They should be used as a guide to trigger a closer examination of the reasons for similarities and to determine whether there is a reasonable explanation for the level of similarity identified. Our Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) review staff look for less than 15% overall and less than 5% per single source in the iThenticate similarity report submitted with your ETD. Percentages equal to or higher than these will result in an additional review by an Associate Dean within the Graduate School. However, even lower or higher percentages may be found problematic or acceptable upon detailed review.
• Information and resources about plagiarism

The Graduate Honor System Constitution's Appendix also offers examples of plagiarism and suggestions for avoiding it.

Graduate students also can visit the Graduate Student Ombudsperson or seek advise from the Advisor to the GHS, Monika Gibson, gibsonm@vt.edu.

Students accused of Honor Code violations have several rights and responsibilities, which can be found here.