Actions to Avoid when Producing Answers

 Making the Textbook Problem Part of the Solution—Authors should never include textbook
questions in their solutions. Instead, authors should write introductory statements in solutions
that capture key concepts of the problem. Authors can always assume that a student has the
textbook in front of him/her.

 Copying Information from Textbooks—Authors should always write original solutions. This
means information, including definitions and explanation of concepts stated in textbooks should
not be copied into solutions. This information should be reworded by authors if it is necessary
to the understanding of a solution. Do not COPY sentences from other sources and then try to
reword them. Doing this increases the risk that the work produced will not be the author’s
original work. Authors are allowed to rewrite general facts stated in the textbook that are not
susceptible to copyright laws.

 Referring to Proper Nouns—Instead of using proper nouns (such as company names)

referenced in the textbook, authors should use/create an alias for these proper nouns. For
example, instead of writing a company name like “Exxon Mobile”, an author could use the alias
“Company EM.”

 Copying/Scanning Images—Authors should create original graphs, diagrams pictures and tables
when making a change to the original image from the textbook. Images should be referenced
instead of created when no material changes are necessary.

 Quoting External Sources—Authors should not quote outside sources. Instead, they should
always create original content. In addition, copying sentences from outside sources and trying
to replace key words with synonyms should be avoided.

 Copying Code from Textbook or Outside Source (Computer Science)—If the use of a code from
the textbook or an outside source is necessary to the understanding of a solution, authors
should reference the code in either the textbook or the outside source instead of copying it into
the solution.