Academic Integrity Office Tips for Students: Programming and Writing Code

Academic Integrity Tips for Students

Just like writing a short story, a how-to guide or even a poem, originality is important when writing code for your class assignments. In most Fulton Schools courses, the code you write must be your own original code that reflects your understanding of the assignment. When struggling with an assignment, it can be tempting to copy or borrow excessively from another person or source to get the assignment finished by the deadline. Do not give in to this temptation! Coding can be difficult but if you apply critical thinking and allow time for design, there is little doubt that you can succeed.

Here are a few tips to consider and pitfalls to avoid:

  • You can help classmates understand the theory and concepts but never show or send your code to another student.
  • Instead of Google or other online resources, use the textbook, assigned readings and instructor office hours when/if you get stuck.
  • Changing the name of the variables, colors, font styles and output formatting in a code is NOT enough to claim that it is your original code.
  • If you consult other allowable resources, read the code carefully, understand and try to extract the logic/behavior behind it; this way you can use it as inspiration and then type your own code for your own purposes without copying and pasting.

Check out this list of more detailed tips and suggestions on writing code from Fulton Schools faculty members.

Please visit the Academic Integrity Office website and the Fulton Schools Resources page for links to the Fulton Schools Tutoring Center and numerous other student resources.

A meme image of a person looking at a laptop with the text: Took 1 hour to write code, 1 day to find missing semicolon.