Your IB Guide to Academic Honesty: How to Avoid the Pitfalls
Let's talk about something that can feel a bit scary but is absolutely critical for your IB success: Academic Honesty. This is covered in an IB Policy called 'Academic Integrity'. Think of it not as a list of rules designed to catch you out, but as the core principle of respecting your own work and the work of others. Getting this right is non-negotiable for protecting your grades and your diploma.
This guide will break down exactly what you need to know, from the most common mistakes students make to a practical checklist for staying in the clear.
The "Big Two": Plagiarism and Collusion Explained
Most academic misconduct cases fall into one of these two categories. Understanding the difference is your first line of defence.
1. Plagiarism: More Than Just Copy-Pasting
Plagiarism means presenting someone else's ideas or work as your own without giving them proper credit. It's often unintentional, stemming from sloppy note-taking, but the consequences are the same. Watch out for these common forms:
- Direct Plagiarism: The classic copy-paste. Taking text word-for-word from a source without using quotation marks and a citation.
- Paraphrasing Plagiarism: Putting someone else's idea into your own words but failing to cite the original source. Your words, their idea – it still needs a citation!
- Mosaic Plagiarism: Weaving together phrases and sentences from different sources to create a new paragraph. If you're not citing each piece, it's still plagiarism.
- Self-Plagiarism: Yes, you can plagiarise yourself! Submitting the same piece of work (or parts of) for different assessment components is not allowed. It is commonly known as 'double dipping'. As an example, your History IA and EE must be entirely separate projects on different topics.
2. Collusion: The Line Between Teamwork and Cheating
Collusion is supporting academic misconduct by another student. This is where the line between helping a friend and cheating can get blurry. Collaboration on ideas is often encouraged, but the work you submit must be 100% your own.
Here’s the difference:
- ✅ Collaboration: Discussing concepts from a Physics lesson with a friend to understand them better.
- ❌ Collusion: Giving that friend your completed lab report to "use as a guide," and they end up submitting work that is almost identical to yours.
- ❌ Collusion: Asking someone to edit or rewrite parts of your essay for you.
- ❌ Collusion: Sharing your exam notes or answers with another student.
The Lanterna Tip: Treat your work like a password. You can discuss the general process with friends, but never share your final written document, code, or data with anyone else before it's submitted.
What's at Stake? The Real Consequences
The IB takes academic malpractice very seriously. The penalties are designed to be a deterrent and to ensure fairness for every student. Here’s what can happen if you're found in breach of the rules:
- A Warning or Grade Penalty: For issues like improper/lack of citation in a small section, you might lose the marks for that component or receive a formal warning.
- A Zero for the Component: For more significant issues, like more extensive lack of citation or a partially copied IA, you'll likely receive a zero for the entire assessment. That's a massive blow to your subject grade.
- No Grade for the Subject: For serious malpractice, like cheating in an exam or submitting a largely plagiarised Extended Essay, you will receive no grade for that subject (effectively thereby failing the Diploma).
- Diploma Withheld: In the most severe cases, the IB may directly decide not to award you the Diploma. All that hard work, gone.
Beyond the IB: Remember that academic misconduct can appear on your school transcripts. Universities can, and do, withdraw conditional offers if they discover an instance of plagiarism or collusion. You also need to use these skills when you get to university.
Your Defence Plan: The Ultimate Citation Checklist
Proper citation is your best tool to uphold academic honesty. It's how you show respect for other researchers and demonstrate the depth of your own learning. Follow this checklist every time.
- When in doubt, cite it out. This is the golden rule. If an idea, fact, image, or piece of data did not originate in your own head, you must acknowledge its source.
- Quote it right. If you use someone's exact words, they MUST be enclosed in quotation marks and followed immediately by an in-text citation, including a page number where possible.
- Paraphrasing still needs a reference. Even when you rephrase an idea, you're still using someone else's intellectual property. Acknowledge the original author with an in-text citation.
- Be ruthlessly consistent. The IB doesn't mandate one specific referencing style (like Chicago, MLA, or APA), but you MUST pick one and use it consistently throughout your entire piece of work. Check what your school or subject teacher prefers.
- Master the two-part system. You need both:
- In-text citations: The short marker right after the information in your essay (e.g., Smith, 2021).
- A full bibliography/works cited list: The complete list of all sources at the very end of your work.
- Keep meticulous notes during research. As soon as you pull a quote or an idea from a source, copy the citation information into your notes immediately. Trying to find it again weeks later is a recipe for accidental plagiarism. Programmes like Microsoft Word and sites like EasyBib will help you do a lot of the admin work behind citation.
- Use your tools wisely. Ask your IB Coordinator if your school provides access to software like Turnitin. You can often use it to check your own work for originality before you submit, giving you a chance to fix any mistakes.
- Artificial Intelligence. Be very careful! The IB allows limited use of AI in planning your work, ideating research, or minor grammar edits. But, this too must be cited. Add an AI Usage Statement, detailing what was used and how, before or after the essay text.
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