Academic work at MIT is rigorous. Much will be asked of you, and many demands will be made on your time. Occasionally, you may feel overwhelmed by the amount of work you need to accomplish. In such situations, you may be tempted to cut corners, risking violations of academic integrity.

You can avoid this scenario by doing the following:

• Plan ahead: find out when assignments are due and mark them on a calendar. Do not try to do them at the last minute.
• Set a certain amount of time apart each day for each course.
• Make a work schedule for yourself and try to keep to it.
• If you cannot meet a deadline, talk to the instructor. Most MIT instructors are reasonable. We would much rather have you ask for an extension than cut corners by being academically dishonest.

Recently, several famous scholars have been accused of plagiarism. Several cited bad note-taking practices as the cause of their mistakes: in taking information from another source, these writers had copied several sentences without putting them in quotation marks. When they transferred these notes into their own text, they believed the sentences were their own and presented them as such. The result was plagiarism.

Such inadvertent plagiarism can be avoided by taking careful notes:

• Write down the page number, author, and title of each source every time you make a note. Do this whether you paraphrase, quote, or jot down useful facts and figures.
• Put quotation marks around any exact wording you take from a source.
• Paraphrase accurately (see Avoiding Plagiarism: Paraphrase)
• Keep a running list of all sources: articles, book, online sources and their URLs.

If you feel confused about the work in class or unclear about an assignment, you have several options:

• Talk to the professor or instructor.
  Make an appointment to see him or her outside of class. If you cannot schedule an appointment within the posted office hours, send the instructor an email requesting another time
• Use office hours.
  Seek help with assignments during office hours. Faculty at MIT often comment that students do not use this opportunity enough. Office hours provide the opportunity for additional contact with faculty, not only to seek their help but to get to know faculty better and to give them a chance to know you.
• Talk to the Teaching Assistant (TA).
  TAs have office hours. Many make themselves available any time, via email. Use this option to get help if you need it. TAs expect to be contacted; it is part of their job.
• Seek the help of your academic advisor.
  If you have a problem you do not feel comfortable talking about with your instructor, talk to your academic advisor.

The Writing and Communications Center is located in the basement of the Stata Building (Stata 32.081). You can make an appointment online for a one-hour session with a trained writing tutor who will help you with your writing assignments. The Center also provides practice and feedback on oral presentations. Many tutors are knowledgeable about the particular needs of non-native English speakers, and all tutors are experienced with work MIT students are required to do.

There is no charge to use the Center. Make an appointment online and visit the site:

http://web.mit.edu/humanistic/www/writcent.html or

http://web.mit.edu/writing/

The MIT Libraries offer both search tools and resources to help you with your research. Subject experts can also save you time by recommending the best places to start your search or answer questions at any stage of the research process. They can also point you to the proper manual or website when you have a question about a particular citation style.

Databases and E-Journals
http://libraries.mit.edu/vera/

Barton Library Catalog - Books and More
http://libraries.mit.edu/barton

Library Subject Experts
http://libraries.mit.edu/ask-us/experts.html

Don't Know Where to Start?
http://libraries.mit.edu/ask-us/

http://web.mit.edu/uaap/programs/ or

http://web.mit.edu/uaap/programs/ls.html for Learning Strategies

http://web.mit.edu/counsel/www/