Academic integrity constitutes a foundational pillar of scholarly enterprise, yet persistent challenges in citation literacy and plagiarism avoidance continue to undermine the credibility of research outputs across higher educational institutions. This study examined the level of citation literacy among undergraduate and postgraduate researchers, assessed the prevalence and typologies of plagiarism in academic writing, and evaluated the effectiveness of existing institutional frameworks for promoting academic integrity. Employing a document review methodology anchored in content analysis of 120 purposively sampled academic texts, institutional policy documents, and published research articles, the study generated rich empirical data through systematic coding, frequency analysis, and cross-tabulation. Findings revealed that a substantial proportion of researchers demonstrated low citation literacy (41.7%), with incorrect in-text citation being the most common error type (52%). Plagiarism prevalence data showed that paraphrasing without attribution constituted the dominant form of academic misconduct (38.3%), followed by direct copying (30.8%). Institutional policy analysis further indicated that while 70% of sampled institutions possessed plagiarism detection infrastructure, fewer than half provided structured citation training programs. The study concluded that citation literacy gaps and inadequate institutional support mechanisms are the primary drivers of plagiarism in academic writing. It recommended mandatory citation literacy integration into research methods curricula, the adoption of multi-tiered plagiarism prevention frameworks, and the strengthening of institutional policy enforcement mechanisms. These findings contribute substantively to the discourse on academic integrity and offer practical, evidence-based guidance for educators, policy makers, and institutional administrators seeking to cultivate a culture of scholarly honesty.