The purpose of this article was to gain an understanding of the definitions of plagiarism, and cheating that are used in the literature, in institutions, and by students. The information was gathered from a literature review, from university and college websites, and from an informal sampling of students from five different first-year classes. The results indicate that there is no one clear definition for each term, and in fact, there is a wide variety of definitions that are used by researchers, institutions, and students. Due to the wide range of definitions, it is the author's contention that the literature on plagiarism and cheating, which indicates how wide-spread the problem is, cannot be trusted due to incomplete or inconsistent definitions. In addition, some measures that institutions can adopt to help students understand academic integrity policies is offered.