Academic integrity is a set of values that lies at the heart of university life. According to the Falmouth University Academic Integrity Policy, these fundamental values are "honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility in scholarship" (2025: 2).
At university, you are part of a wider academic community. Whether you're writing an essay, creating a piece of art, composing music, or designing a digital game, you're drawing on a network of information, influences and inspirations. Academic integrity is what allows this exchange to work fairly and transparently.
Academic work, especially at Falmouth University, is about developing your own perspective through research and practice. That means engaging with what others have said, seen, made, or written - and bringing those influences into your own work. Referencing is how you do that with integrity- it's a system that shows clearly when you're using someone else's work, and it helps build credibility by linking your ideas to a wider conversation.
So, properly acknowledging your sources by consistently and accurately referencing and citing them demonstrates academic integrity.
Universities prefer to trust their students to be honest about the work they are submitting and ask students to honour and include a statement of academic integrity with their assignment submissions. That said, most universities, including Falmouth, use text-matching software such as Turnitin to help them detect copied work.
If you don't do your own research and don't express your own ideas and interpretations (because you have copied, relied too much on Generative AI tools, or bought an essay or part of an essay), or if you fail to reference your sources carefully, you may be accused of academic misconduct, i.e. plagiarism, for example.
Plagiarism means using someone else's work, ideas, or words without proper acknowledgment. Plagiarism is considered academic dishonesty and is a form of academic misconduct. In addition to plagiarism, academic misconduct includes acts of collusion, commissioning, duplication (including self-plagiarism), and misrepresentation.
All students are recommended to read the University's Academic Integrity Policy and be aware of the Academic Misconduct Procedure - links to these can be found in the Reference List below.
Reference List
FALMOUTH UNIVERSITY. 2025. Academic Integrity Policy.
FALMOUTH UNIVERSITY. 2025. Academic Misconduct Procedure.
