Plagiarism and How to Avoid It

Plagiarism and How to Avoid It Dr. Robert Tindol Shantou University March 5, 2011

Plagiarism can have serious consequences http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/02/world/europe/02germany.html?_r=1&ref=world

What is Plagiarism • http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html

Is plagiarism universally recognized as a violation? • The answer is YES. The unattributed use of someone else’s work is not permitted, regardless of where one lives or where one goes to school. • Do the penalties vary from university to university and from country to country? Probably, but why take the chance?

Plagiarism is unnecessary • The wholesale theft of a paper notwithstanding, plagiarism is usually unintentional. • The most common cause is sloppiness. • The easiest remedy is simple adherence to good documentation practices. • It’s also crucial to know WHEN to document.

What is documentation? • When you use anyone else’s work or words, you must do the following: • Give them credit when you first cite their work or use it in any shape, form, or fashion • Provide full information in the “reference” or “works cited” or “bibliography” section on how to find the original source of the work you have used

Why do you need to document? • Writers must be credited for their hard work if someone else uses their material. • If you are using someone else’s work, this means that you are using them to support your own argument. Your reader has the right to check up on your sources to make sure you have used them properly. • Your reader may also want to do further reading on your research topic, so your bibliography may be helpful as a guide to additional material.

When do you NOT need to document? • When your written work is entirely original and you do not rely on anyone else’s work to support your argument. • When you use information that is “common knowledge.”

What is common knowledge? • Common knowledge is factual information that reasonably educated people should know. • For example, if one mentions Napoleon, it is not necessary to document a source acknowledging that the man existed. • If you wish to mention something you once heard somewhere about rumors of Napoleon’s having been poisoned, it’s best to err on the side of caution and reference a good source for this theory. For one thing, scholarship is much better if one relies on documents rather than hearsay. • If you write that “Napoleon was thenceforward master of the Continent, and England of the ocean,” you need immediately to reference page 1,008 of Henry Adams’s History of the United States of America.

Is it possible to write a paper without any sources? • Yes. You have probably already been given several such assignments in your English classes. • Examples: --The “personal essay.” --The close reading of a short poem or brief literary passage. --A persuasive essay on a public topic on which you argue only the ethics of widely held opinions on the matter, such as whether abortion is “murder.”

Then why bother with writing projects where you must cite sources? • Your argument is often stronger if you use either data, or opinion from an expert, or the closely related work of an expert. • Many research projects require a survey of the literature—in other words, citation of similar work that has been done in the past. • You may simply be required to do a “research paper” with a set number of sources in order to earn your grade for a course.

Is it REALLY okay to use someone else’s work? Yes. In fact, your paper may be much improved by citing someone else’s work. But you are required to give full credit.

Question: How do I give credit, then? Answer: By using proper documentation.

Documentation • There are several major styles used in U.S. and other universities: • APA • MLA • CSE • Chicago

APA • This is the style of the American Psychological Association • APA is widely used by social scientists, as well as educators, business researchers, and others • Students who need to learn how to use APA style should consider purchasing the manual. • Doctoral students writing dissertations and career researchers should definitely buy the manual. • Undergraduates who need only turn in an occasional paper of modest length may get by with one of the on-line guides that are available.

The Purdue Writing Lab • The lab maintains a fairly through APA style guide and other useful information. • The Web site is at the following URL: • http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

MLA • This is the style of the Modern Language Association. MLA is used in virtually all English courses, in other language courses, and by various humanities disciplines. • You can buy this one as well.

CSE • This is the style manual of the Council of Science Editors (formerly the Council of Biology Editors). The manual is widely used in the sciences and technical fields, and is the house style of many of the world’s most important science journals. • You probably don’t want to buy it.

Chicago • Not as important as the other three in academia, but used by various book publishers and certain journals. • If you want it, here it is.

Do the style manuals vary? • Yes, but only on minor details. • The rules for plagiarism are exactly the same in those four, as well as in other style manuals.

Is there such a thing as an “APA” paper, or an “MLA” paper? • If you hear those expressions, it means that the paper is documented according to APA or MLA style. • If a paper has no sources, a term such as “MLA paper” probably refers to the indentation of margins, the formatting of the cover page, and such.

If I provide good in-text citations and then provide full bibliographical information in my works-cited page, then why do I need to bother with the manual? • Like punctuation marks, documentation style elements are arbitrary rather than universal, and only make sense to someone else if they are predictable and consistent. • Therefore, you should choose a style and stick with it. • If your professor tells you to use one style, bear in mind that a professor in another department may require a different style.

Is it necessary to study the style manual and memorize the documentation procedure? • No. • That’s pretty masochistic. You only need be familiar enough with the style manual you choose to use it properly for documenting your paper. • Besides, the organizations responsible for the style manuals make formatting changes occasionally.

If it changes occasionally, then why bother at all? • The changes in the style guides are infrequent and are MINOR changes! The rules of plagiarism, by contrast, are monolithic. Whether you use in-text citations that reference a last name and page number, for example, or whether you place a superscript reference number that leads to source information at the bottom of the page, is a comparatively trivial detail. • The main thing is to choose a style and use it consistently. Skipping between styles would not inherently be plagiarism, but nevertheless would be frustrating for your reader.

Plagiarism may be risky, but what about the payoff? • There is little if anything to be gained by plagiarism! • Violators are more easily caught than ever because of the Internet. • The penalties are severe, as we saw with the case of the German defense minister.

Then why do people do it? • One possible motivation: • Deadline pressure. Students have been caught downloading a paper and confessing after being caught red-handed. (Did I mention that catching people is EASY?) Their excuse was that they couldn’t write a paper in time because they are not very good writers, that they had to work on assignments for other classes, etc, etc, etc.

Then why do people do it? (Part 2) • Other likely reasons: • Some students apparently assume that the “Internet is for everyone” and that everything on the Internet is free for the taking. • Some naively assume that rehashing a topic that has already been written about is “reinventing the wheel.” • Others assume that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” • Still others assume that quoting someone without citing them is okay if it’s okay with the original writer.

The most likely causes of plagiarism: • Carelessness • Not knowing how to document the sources.

Remember, when you use someone else’s work, you MUST give them credit immediately with an in-text citation, and you MUST credit them again if you use information from the same source later in the paper.

Also, you MUST provide full bibliographical information at the end of the paper in your list of references

How does one learn how not to make documentation errors? • Practice is helpful. One good source is the on-line tutorial maintained by the University of Indiana education school. The site has lots of useful information about plagiarism, such as this collection. The site also provides some examples to help you define plagiarism in your own mind.

The Indiana site • You can earn a certificate that shows you have taken the on-line exam, and you can even practice with this 10-item exercise before proceeding to the test itself.

Conclusion • The bad news is that plagiarism is a serious academic offense that is not tolerated at institutions of higher learning. • The good news is that learning how NOT to plagiarize is relatively easy. • In fact, you can learn how to document your resources correctly by expending just a few hours of effort. • Passing the Indiana test will likely train you to the extent that you will never have a problem.

Plagiarism and How to Avoid It