You are a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology because of your demonstrated intellectual ability and because of your potential to make a significant contribution to human thought and knowledge. At MIT, you will be given unusual opportunities to do research and undertake scholarship that will advance knowledge in your fields of study. You will also face many challenges.

As the world becomes more complex, scientists and engineers, as well as humanists, social scientists, architects and planners, need to be able to communicate what they know both to each other and to the public. One of MIT’s goals is to graduate articulate men and women who will be able to take their expertise into the world and communicate it effectively. During your academic life at MIT, you will be required to complete assignments based on oral communication and writing, some of which will require research in libraries and laboratories and accessing electronic resources.

MIT anticipates that you will pursue your studies with purpose and integrity. The cornerstone of scholarship in all academic disciplines is honesty. MIT expects that you will approach everything you do here honestly – whether solving a math problem, writing a research or critical paper, or writing an exam.

Some of you may be coming from educational systems where rules of academic integrity were not clearly defined or enforced. Others may be studying in the United States for the first time. To ensure that all MIT students understand the high academic standards of the Institute, we have prepared this handbook to help guide you when you approach the research and writing tasks your courses will demand of you.

This handbook outlines important information you will need to know about correctly acknowledging your sources when you write a report, research paper, critical essay, or position paper. It also provides guidelines for collaboration on assignments and for writing original computer code. It does not address all issues related to integrity in your work at MIT, especially various research ethics issues, which often are field-specific. Your research supervisor and department are important sources of information concerning these questions.

You should note that this handbook provides information about what constitutes violations of academic integrity and what the consequences of committing such violations are. Please familiarize yourself with this material before you begin work in your classes, and use it as a resource when you have questions — at MIT and beyond. Ignorance is never an excuse for academic dishonesty.