Reading great literature and struggling with the weighty ideas contained in that literature has bought joy, fulfillment and confidence to people for centuries. Not surprisingly, the Brunswick School English Department is committed to the idea that students should learn to read and enjoy great works of literature and should then learn to articulate in clear, concise writing the thoughts inspired by that literature. The thoughts the students generate, however, should be their own, derived from the works read and the guidance provided by the English instructors. The thoughts presented in their written work should not be regurgitated thoughts culled from external sources such as Cliff’s Notes, Sparknotes, or any of the numerous sites devoted to providing students with ready-made essays.

Because students are unfairly tempted to plagiarize, the unacknowledged use of someone else’s work in place of one’s own , by taking whole essays, parts of essays, or merely bits of sentences from the websites they find, Brunswick is now subscribing to an online service that will check the authenticity of students’ written work either whole or in part. All essays submitted to us will be checked by this service, developed by a group of professors at The University of California at Berkeley. Initially this may sound like an extreme solution, but further deliberation should bring students and parents to the realization that the pressure to plagiarize in the quest for higher grades has been lifted. The Brunswick English Department has always preferred that students learn to think for themselves and learn to articulate their thoughts in original form rather than merely regurgitating the thoughts of others. The adoption of the new technology merely reinforces the preexisting policy.

Students who wish to use outside sources to assist them in writing papers must cite those sources, and any member of the English Department will gladly provide assistance in doing so properly. Failure to cite a source will be considered plagiarism. Any assignment found to be plagiarized will receive a zero and the student will be required to rewrite the essay. The maximum grade for the rewritten essay will be a 50. The student will also face serious official sanctions from Brunswick or Greenwich Academy.

The same sort of standards that apply to the construction of essays also applies to daily assignments. Any homework of any sort that is handed in under a student’s own name must in fact be work produced by the student, not through collaboration with other students; some assignments may ask students to work in a group, but such projects will be clearly delineated as such. Any homework submitted that is not clearly collaborative in nature must be original. We would like students to learn to take pride in doing their best on any given assignment. Parents are always welcome to assist their sons and daughters in doing homework, but help should be rendered with the understanding that homework is an opportunity for students to strengthen their knowledge; homework is not something that is merely to be completed.

One of the skills taught in a Brunswick English class is the proper annotation of a text. These notes are valuable during class discussions, the construction of essays, and the preparation for semester exams. Oftentimes, students are asked to write essays within the context of class and are frequently allowed to use their texts which should contain valuable annotations. Therefore, students will be required to use only their own books, not books borrowed from other students or siblings for writing "in-class" essays. The annotations of others may indeed constitute an unfair advantage and their use is considered plagiarism. 

The Brunswick English Department takes very seriously the issue of academic integrity, and we hope our strong stand on this issue will help students avoid succumbing to the powerful temptations with which they are presented.