The need has arisen for me to remind everyone that you are all bound by the University’s policy on Academic Honesty. Specifically under no circumstance are you permitted to collaborate when writing lab reports. As stated in the Undergraduate Physics Laboratories web page, under the link Lab Policy and Regulations:
“You may work with others to understand the experiment but your report must be your unique work in your own words.”
If there is any doubt in student’s mind as to what the University’s Academic Honesty policy is, I urge everyone to visit the Dean of Students Office webpage:
http://www.umass.edu/dean_students/codeofconduct/acadhonesty/
Some students may falsely assume that collaboration on an experiment in lab carries over to writing lab reports. As the faculty supervisor of the laboratory I explicitly forbid any collaboration when writing reports. Each student is submitting his/her own report and each report is graded individually.
If you have any questions, please review the Dean of Students web page.