Academic honesty is expected of all students as it is essential to the work of the college. Given this, academic dishonesty is taken very seriously; it may be especially tempting—and harmful—in writing. Plagiarism (including the use of generative artificial intelligence), falsification of documents, and other cases of academic fraud carry a range of penalties, up to and including expulsion, and may be disclosed in the student’s academic record. It is a sad fact that in recent years students have been suspended and expelled for plagiarism, including the use of generative artificial intelligence.

Plagiarism is the failure to give appropriate acknowledgment when drawing on others’ written works. Including passages that have been composed by or with the assistance of generative artificial intelligence programs is plagiarism, whether or not the “original” text is preserved in any other document or other location. Plagiarism does not refer merely to submitting the written work of another in its entirety. It could include adopting only parts of sentences directly without acknowledging the source or taking ideas or the structure of an argument without doing so, even when no phrases or sentences are incorporated directly. Students should be particularly careful not to use material found on the internet without citing the source properly, regardless of how slight the appropriations. Students should not include passages that have been composed, translated, or substantially revised by computer programs, e.g. by generative artificial intelligence platforms or comparable tools. The college encourages students to use papers to raise their own questions, expand upon them, pursue plausible answers, and develop a persuasive argument; reference to, or use of, secondary sources is not required typically and is inappropriate generally. Students who struggle with writing are encouraged to draw on the wealth of help available to them, including reaching out to tutors, writing assistants, friends and fellow students. Students who are found guilty of plagiarism—which includes the use of generative artificial intelligence—may face a range of penalties, up to and including expulsion.

With the founding of the New Program, St. John’s distinguished itself by not doing what most other colleges do (no majors, no textbooks, an all-required, shared curriculum). We can now add to that list not allowing artificially generated text for anything in our academic program. St. John’s remains committed to being a community where people support one another in the human activity of searching for truth. Writing at the college is one vital means of doing so. Recently, a group of students, tutors and staff gathered to articulate the importance of writing at the college; their inspiring and sometimes provocative words can be found in this Statement on Writing at St. John’s College.