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Assignment Scenarios

Seek Permission before Reusing a Paper

Contact your instructor to obtain explicit permission before submitting a paper that was previously prepared for a different assignment or purpose. If you would like to use the same paper (or papers with significant overlap) for different courses you are taking in the same term, explicit permission from the instructor of each of the courses is necessary.

Reusing a paper is not always wrong. A paper you have already written may be very appropriate and speak to the topic assigned. The consideration in such a circumstance is to avoid misleading the instructor. In such cases, a student of academic integrity will communicate with the instructor to explain why a previously written paper is appropriate for the current assignment, and request permission to use it again. The student should be honest. The instructor may have no way of knowing that the paper had already been submitted for a prior assignment.

Seek permission from your instructor

Graphic by Sara LeBlanc

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