Plagiarism is the academic offense and is taken very seriously by colleges and universities.
Chattanooga State's plagiarism policy is contained in the Student Handbook which can be found in the college catalog. The most serious plagiarism is deliberate plagiarism where a student, out of fear, laziness, or anger, deliberately turns in someone else's work as his or her own. The penalty for deliberate plagiarism ranges from failure on that assignment, to failure in the course, to expulsion from school. The more common type of plagiarism is accidental plagiarism where a student inadvertently plagiarises. When I was in high school, I was told that as long as I didn't copy three consecutive words from the original, it wasn't plagiarism.