The two key elements I pick from the catalog are personal responsibility, specifically student responsibility and plagiarism. Student responsibility entails being accountable for my success, including making choices that will lead me toward my educational goals. As a student, I should succeed in school, and avoiding plagiarism is one of my responsibilities. My other duties as a student include being my advocate, asking questions, completing my assignments, and striving to be better. As a scholar and an aspiring professional, these two elements are essential because they are an equation for success. I cannot succeed if I do not own up to my responsibilities and act ethically.

On Jan. 15, 2012, an editor on fox news plagiarized an article about the use of dolphins by the navy from the Atlantic wire. The editor copied the work word for word and failed to acknowledge or cite the Atlantic wire’s editor post correctly. Later on, the editor apologized, adequately edited, and sourced the original post by the Atlantic wire. Every student’s responsibility is to ensure that you take the right notes as you read, use in-text citations and quotation marks and give authors credit for their work. It is my student’s responsibility to act ethically, and taking someone else’s work or ideas as your own is unethical.

As a student, it is essential to use our original thought and avoid plagiarism. The strategy I would use to prevent plagiarism’s unethical mistake is to know the common types of plagiarism. Secondly, develop various practical academic skills such as properly in text cite in any formatting style. When taking notes while reading, I will need to be vigilant in taking note of the author and the page number where I read the ideas. If I am not sure if something is considered common knowledge and does not need a citation, I will ask a professor or a librarian.