Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity and Professional Ethics

Academic integrity remains one of the core values of almost all public and private educational institutions. It is critical to ensure that students uphold honesty, trust, and truthfulness in the process of learning by desisting from lying, cheating, and stealing content from other people’s works. Available evidence proves that people who uphold academic integrity usually develop into ethical, honest, and accurate professional leaders and employees who are willing to provide full credit to where it is due (Wueste, 2018). However, cases of academic dishonesty remain rampant not only in American schools but across the globe (Wong, Lim, & Quinlan, 2016). The precise analysis in this paper examines how academic integrity is likely to affect professional integrity and how best individuals can maintain integrity in their work. In essence, integrity is the foundation on which academic and professional success is built.

The Connection between Academic and Professional Integrity

Academic integrity promotes fundamental social values such as honesty, fairness, responsibility, respect, and trust, which are critical in developing positive behaviors that are consistent with ethical and professional expectations. Academic integrity begins with honesty in writing. As part of academic integrity, students are expected to write their own original work while at the same time ensuring accuracy and consistency (Bretag, 2016). As such, students are to carry out research on the subject and integrate relevant information in their work and accurately acknowledge any source that they have used in the research process. By acknowledging the contributions of other people, students demonstrate honesty and moral behavior in their academic work (Wong et al., 2016). Failure to provide an acknowledgment for information retrieved from other sources amounts to plagiarism. Paraphrasing is one of the vital mechanisms through which students can minimize plagiarism. It entails rewriting of contents in personal words to regenerate authentic work (Grossberg, 2017). Academic tools such as Grammarly and SafeAssign assist in correcting syntax errors that might exist in a written academic text and rate the level of plagiarism, thereby fostering academic integrity.

Commitment to scholarly ethics culminates in professional ethics. Students who commit to academic integrity are highly likely to develop a reputation for honesty, fairness, trustworthiness, and responsibility in their current and future careers (Wong et al., 2016). With such a reputation, people tend to do the right thing, develop trust, and adopt behaviors that are consistent with ethical values and beliefs. Additionally, employers tend to hire individuals who exhibit high standards of personal integrity, which can be obtained through academic integrity.

Strategies for Maintaining Integrity of Work

As a student and an aspiring nurse, I intend to pursue numerous strategies to maintain integrity and ethics. As a student, I seek to carefully read and understand course syllabus as well as class policies and expectations to be in a position to produce academic works that meet class requirements. Additionally, I will aspire to complete my assignments independently, begin the assignments early enough, and keep track of all sources that I use in my work while ensuring proper and accurate referencing and citation of the texts that I quote or paraphrase. I will also use Grammarly and SafeAssign to minimize grammatical errors and eliminate plagiarism. Throughout my career as a nurse, I look forward to maintaining honesty, fairness, respect, responsibility, and trust by always committing to doing the right thing. I will depend on peer-reviewed academic articles and books as well as organizational policies and guidelines to foster my academic and professional integrity.

Conclusion

Commitment to academic integrity precipitates into desirable professional ethics that are critical in building trust and attaining career success. At the core of academic integrity is honesty in completing assignments. Students must learn to produce their original work and accurately cite any information quoted or paraphrased from other sources to avoid plagiarism. There is also a need to ensure that all information used is from credible sources and are accurately referenced. People who commit to academic integrity develop into honest, fair, responsible, trustworthy, and respectable leaders and employees, leading to professional success.