Plagiarism

Part 1:What is it?

How to avoid it: paraphrasing

There are some intellectual challenges that all students are faced with when writing. Sometimes these challenges can almost seem like contradictions, particularly when addressing them within a single

paper. Teachers often instruct students to:_______________________________________________________________________________

• Develop a topic based onwhat has already been said and written

• Rely on experts' and authorities' opinions  

• Give credit to previous researchers

• Improve your English to fit into a discourse community by building upon what you hear and read

• Write somethingnew and original

• Improve upon and/or disagree with those same opinions

• Make your own significant contribution

• Use your own words and your own voice

BUT

BUT

BUT

BUT

If these challenges are not met we risk committing plagiarism, which is a very serious offense in academia.

What is Plagiarism?

Definition: deliberately using someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source.– This definition applies to texts published in print or on-line, to manuscripts, and to the work of other student writers.

What does this include?

1. submitting someone else’s text as one’s own or attempting to blur the line between one’s own ideas or words and those borrowed from another source

Taken from: Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices

This Includes:

2. carelessly or inadequately citing ideas and words borrowed from another source.

This Includes:

3. Not citing sources at all.

What are the causes of Plagiarism?They are many reasons as to why one might plagiarize:

• Students may fear failure or fear taking risks in their own work.• Students may have poor time-management skills or they may plan poorly for

the time and effort required for research-based writing, and believe they have no choice but to plagia rize.

• Students may view the course, the assignment, the conventions of academic documenta tion, or the consequences of cheating as unimportant.

• Teachers may present students with assignments so generic or unparticularized that students may believe they are justified in looking for canned responses.

• Instructors and institutions may fail to report cheating when it does occur, or may not enforce appropriate penalties.

Taken from: Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices

How do I avoid Plagiarism?

• There are three main ways we will avoid Plagiarism:1. Paraphrasing (Note: You still MUST cite)2. In-Text Citations3. Works Cited

What is Paraphrasing?

• To Paraphrase is:–to restate something using

other words, especially in order to make it simpler or shorter.

Paraphrasing

• Use a statement that credits the source somewhere in the paraphrase or summary.– Ex: According to Jonathan Kozol, ....

• If you're having trouble summarizing, try writing your paraphrase or summary of a text without looking at the original, relying only on your memory and notes.

Paraphrasing

• Check your paraphrase or summary against the original text; correct any errors in content accuracy, and be sure to use quotation marks to set off any exact phrases from the original text that you use.

• Check your paraphrase or summary against sentence and paragraph structure, as copying those is also considered plagiarism.

Paraphrasing

• Put quotation marks around any unique words or phrases that you cannot or do not want to change.– Ex: "savage inequalities" exist throughout our

educational system (Kozol).

Your Turn!

• Now that we know what plagiarism is and how to paraphrase to avoid plagiarizing, it’s your turn to practice!