Academic Integrity on Work You Can Explain

Does This Source Actually Support Your Sentence?

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

A citation supports a sentence only when the source provides evidence for the sentence’s actual meaning. Compare the population, conditions, outcome, and strength of the claim with the relevant passage or result. Revise the sentence when it says more than the evidence allows.

The goal is a sentence you can defend by opening the cited source and explaining the connection. A citation at the end of a paragraph cannot do that reasoning for you.

Protect Student Data Before You Share Anything with AI

Thu, 03 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Before sending a document, screenshot, log, dataset, or source file to an AI service, reduce the request to the minimum permitted evidence. Replace real values with synthetic equivalents when possible. Remove direct and indirect identifiers. Inspect filenames, metadata, and surrounding context. Then review the exact outgoing input.

If the task still requires restricted or sensitive material after that pass, do not treat redaction as automatic permission. Use an approved institutional route or ask an authorized person.

Communicating with Instructors During a Technical Crisis

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

When a technical problem may affect an assignment, contact the instructor as soon as the risk is clear. The message should make the situation easy to understand: identify the course and assignment, describe what happened, state what you have checked, explain the current risk, and make one specific request.

You do not need to prove the final cause before sending the first message. You do need to be accurate about what you observed and what you have tried.

Academic Integrity in the Age of AI

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0500

There is no universal rule for acceptable AI assistance. The controlling rules come from the assignment, course syllabus, instructor, department, institution, and applicable data policy. Read them before using AI, and ask the instructor when the boundary is unclear.

Start with the learning objective

AI tutoring supports the student’s learning when it helps the student perform the required thinking. Prohibited substitution occurs when the tool performs work the student is expected to produce independently.

Ask AI to Explain an Error Without Solving the Assignment

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Ask AI to help investigate evidence, not to replace the assignment.

Provide a permitted minimal reproduction, complete error message, expected and observed behavior, and your attempted checks. Request an explanation of the error category, ranked hypotheses, and one inspection step at a time. Do not ask for rewritten assignment code.

Check the course boundary first

Before sharing anything, determine:

whether AI debugging help is allowed;
whether assignment text or code may be uploaded;
whether assistance must be disclosed or cited;
which tools or accounts are approved; and
whether the work contains private data.

If the policy is ambiguous, ask the instructor. Remove names, credentials, tokens, private paths, and unrelated course material.