Avoiding-Plagiarism ( Week 2)

What is plagiarism?

Deliberate Plagiarism
Copying or buying a paper
Recycling one of your papers from another class
Using information (ideas, words, passages) from another source without acknowledging (citing) that source

Unintentional Plagiarism
Paraphrasing that is too close to the original (patchwriting)
Copying and pasting online sources into your paper
Forgetting to name the source

What is a source?
Any print material: books, journals, magazines, newspapers, ads, etc.
Cite me!
Any electronic or nonprint material:
online journals, web sites, email, films,
TV, plays, songs, speech, lecture, etc.

What kind of information isn’t necessary to acknowledge?

COMMON KNOWLEDGE

Common knowledge that your readers will already know
Examples:
George W. Bush was governor of Texas before becoming president of the United States.
Insider trading is illegal.

Common knowledge in a specific field
Examples:
Depression is caused by biological factors and psychological and social stresses. (Common knowledge in the field of psychology)
An ultrasound machine can be used to treat a patient in both acute and chronic phases of healing. (Common knowledge in the field of physical therapy)

Information that someone could easily locate.
Examples:
Communication giants Viacom and CBS merged in 1999.
Fr. Lawton has been president of LMU since May 1999.

Results from your own research: interviews, surveys, observations, data, etc.
Your Personal Views and Interpretations

What kind of
information requires
acknowledging
the source?

Direct quotations: incorporating another person’s ideas exactly word for word into your paper.
“For a time, the United States Telegraph and the Washington Globe were almost equally favored as party organs, and there were fifty-seven journalists on the government payroll” (116).
Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of
Research Papers. New York: The Modern Language
Association of America, 2003.
Citation is in MLA style.

Paraphrased facts or statistical information from other sources that most people wouldn’t know.
The average person must see a television commercial at least seven times before they actually remember viewing the commercial (“Interesting Facts,” 1999).
Interesting facts and statistics about advertising. (1999). BPS Outdoor Advertising. Retrieved February 3, 2005, from http://www.bpsoutdoor.com/interest.htm
Citation is in APA style.

Claims, arguments, theories, interpretations of others that you have paraphrased or summarized.
The Chaos Theory suggests that there is order in even the most random and disorganized information (Young, 1991).
Young, T.R. (1991). Chaos and social change: Metaphysics of the postmodern. The Social Science Journal, 28(3), 289-305.
Citation is in APA style.

Ideas from others via personal communication such as a professor, friend, acquaintance.
According to Prof. Blystone (personal communication, February 9, 2005), the notion of the deity determines all practices in the culture.

How do I avoid plagiarizing unintentionally?
Skillfully integrating sources into your writing is not easy. Achieving a balance between presenting the ideas of others and your own interpretations is what entering the academic community is all about.
As you write more papers in your major, you will become more knowledgeable in the subject matter and able to summarize and restate others’ ideas more easily.
In the meantime, follow some do’s and don’ts and you won’t be guilty of plagiarism.

RESEARCH
DO’s
and DON’Ts

DO
Pre-read before reading: Scan the introduction, section headings & conclusion before you start reading to get an overview.
Take notes or highlight the thesis, main ideas and interesting information pertinent to your research.
Write a summary IN YOUR OWN WORDS when finished reading and taking notes.

Copy direct quotations exactly from the original source, word for word. Use quotation marks. Note the page number!
Be sure to clearly indicate in your note-taking when you are adding your comments of the material read.
Keep track of all bibliographic information: Full name of author, title and subtitle, journal, magazine, etc. and volume number, dates of publication, webpage, database, complete page numbers of journal articles and the date you retrieved the information, etc.
DO

DON’T
Copy a passage and change only an occasional word here and there. This is called patchwriting and qualifies as plagiarism.
Cut and paste material directly into your paper without summarizing, paraphrasing, or quoting.
Forget to cite!

What exactly is
summarizing
and paraphrasing?

Summarizing is….
Restating information in your own words in a shortened version.
A summary includes the thesis or central argument and supporting main ideas.
Never restate main ideas including the thesis. Do not write a summary like an essay (with main points often repeated).

Summarizing…
Include direct quotations only when appropriate and sparingly.
Do not add your opinions in the middle of summarizing unless you have clearly marked these ideas as yours and not the original author’s. Reintroduce the author’s name to clarify any confusing parts to the reader.

The length of the summary is determined by your purpose in writing it and the length of the original work.
Always acknowledge the author’s last name either in a parenthetical citation or in the body of the text.
Summarizing…

Paraphrasing is…
A restatement of the original passage in your own words.
The length of the paraphrase is usually as long as the original. In this respect, it is different from a summary.
Usually, only sentences or paragraphs are paraphrased.

Example of a Paraphrase
(taken from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_quotprsum.html)
The original passage:
Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed. (1976): 46-47.
A legitimate paraphrase:
In research papers students often quote excessively, failing to keep quoted material down to a desirable level. Since the problem usually originates during note taking, it is essential to minimize the material recorded verbatim (Lester 46-47).

THE ONLY WAY TO AVOID THE BIG “P”!
For both paraphrasing and summarizing, it is imperative that you understand completely the material. It may take 2 or 3 readings to reach the point where you can restate in your own words what was meant in the original source.
Practice Exercises in Paraphrasing:
Purdue’s online writing lab: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_paraphrEX1.html

Still confused?
OK, so now you know how to avoid plagiarizing. Are you still a little confused about ways to acknowledge the sources you used?
The academic community uses more than one way to give credit where credit is due. These various ways of acknowledging the sources we use are called:

Documentation or
Citation Styles
The most widely used styles are
MLA, alias, The Modern Language Association
Used in the fields of English, literature and languages.
APA, The American Psychological Association
Used in the fields of psychology, communication studies, education, and other social sciences.
Other styles
Chicago Manual of Style
Used in the humanities sometimes as an alternative to MLA.
CBE, Council of Science Editors (formerly known as Biology Editors).
Used in the natural sciences, the physical sciences and mathematics