The Concept of Plagiarism

* Clearly define plagiarism. * Address why students plagiarize. * Discuss intentional vs. unintentional plagiarism. * Discuss the importance of citing with specific examples of improper citation and describe why this is considered plagiarism. * Discuss citing, direct quoting, paraphrasing and expressing another 's ideas. * Define common knowledge and whether it is better to over-cite or under-cite.

Plagiarize means to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one 's own : use (a created production) without crediting the source vi: to commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source. (S.E. Van Bramer, 1995)
People plagiarize One of the most common reasons students plagiarize is because they feel overwhelmed. It 's difficult to juggle the demands of several classes and have a social life. Many students also experience tremendous anxiety about writing assignments and research projects.
Students engage in plagiarism for a number of other reasons as well, including: fear of asking for help with assignments, difficulty in finding and analyzing research materials, belief that unfair or unsympathetic treatment from a professor justifies cheating, or they get trapped into searching for the "one right answer." Unfortunately, a small number of students plagiarize out of laziness or surrender to the mistaken notion that "buying" a paper is not any different than paying for an education. However, plagiarism is never justified. (4)
Experience brings an understanding of how to break writing and research projects into manageable pieces. Seasoned writers are often more relaxed simply because they know how to plan their work. They have learned from past mistakes and recognize that writing is a process. Learning how to plan your research and writing assignments reduces a lot of the pressure that can foster plagiarism.
Why Students Plagiarize
There are many reasons students

References: alert your reader to the resources that helped shape your work - the words, ideas, pictures, opinions, data and even methodologies of others. To incorporate sources properly, one needs to keep track of the facts and expert opinions gathered during the research process, and then use both in-text-citations and bibliographic citations to alert readers where they can find the resource. Regardless of format or style, the central goals of any citation remain the same: crediting the referred source (author/creator), and giving the audience enough information (title, publisher, city) to locate the source. Failure to cite your source, or even failure to cite properly, is plagiarism. Whether intended or not, improper citation leads the reader to believe that you are taking credit for the work of another. Quoting and Paraphrasing See the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th ed., for details | Quoting Avoid using direct quotes in your paper. They are problematic because (a) meaning can be altered when authors’ words are taken out of context; (b) another author’s writing style may not fit the writing style of your paper; (c) direct quotes give no indication that you understand the source, nor does it help the reader understand the source; (d) direct quotes can be distracting to the reader and break the flow of your paper. * It is not necessary to use any direct quotes in a paper. If used at all, quotes should be limited to the following: * discussing the way an author expressed his or her ideas, * presenting a controversial or disputed statement, * conveying precise technical data or directions, * rhetorical effect, to introduce or emphasize a point. | ParaphrasingPerhaps paraphrasing is best defined by what it is not. Changing or omitting a few words of another author’s statements in order to avoid a direct quote is not paraphrasing; it is, to be blunt, a form of plagiarism. Readers are led to believe that you are presenting your understanding of another author’s words, when in fact you are using that author’s actual words (mostly). Paraphrasing requires that you express ideas in your own terms. Of course, you will use some of the same terminology as the original author. If you are writing about corporate downsizing, for example, you can’t avoid that term. However, if you simply parrot the original author’s sentence structure, style, and diction, then you are not paraphrasing. Here’s a strategy for paraphrasing: Read a section of the text you plan to reference, put the text aside, and write your own interpretation in your own words. If you can’t do it, you need to reread the text for better understanding before you try again. Sometimes reading aloud is helpful. |