Academic Integrity and Research

VCC expects students to demonstrate honesty and integrity in their academic work. This page will introduce you to the concept of academic integrity and direct you to resources for citing your work and initiating research in the library.

Photo by Jaeyoung Geoffrey Kang on Unsplash

Academic integrity includes: 

  • Doing your own assignments, writing your own papers, and properly citing your resources. 
  • Taking an exam without help from your textbooks or friends.  

You are responsible for knowing VCC's policies, including: 

Not following academic integrity has consequences, which may include: 

  • Having to redo the assignmentoften for a lower grade 
  • Failing the assignment 
  • Failing the course. 

Please check your course syllabus for guidelines, and ask your instructor to clarify anything you are uncertain about, such as the appropriate and allowed use of generative AI in your work.

Plagiarism is taking credit for the work of others, and is a form of academic dishonesty with serious consequences. We can avoid plagiarism by writing references, or citing our sources, and giving credit to the sources we consult. Learn more about this in the following tutorial:

A great place to start for any research assignment, is with the appropriate subject guide for your area. Explore library guides by Subject here:

Much of what VCC Library offers is digital, including: ebooks, audiobooks, streaming video, and online access to magazines, journals and newspapers. Explore it all through the VCC library website.

Get help accessing and using quality information and resources for your assignments, including research support and assistance with citation styles and avoiding plagiarism: