Before He Cheats

Plagiarism - "is the uncredited use (both intentional and unintentional) of somebody else's words or ideas" (Stolley).

Stolley, Karl. "Avoiding Plagiarism." The OWL at Purdue. 30 September 2008. 30 August 2009

<http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/>.

 

 

 

See also:
Is It Plagiarism Yet? by Purdue OWL
Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices by Council of Writing Program Administrators

Three ways avoid plagiarism:

Use direct quotes, paraphrase, or summarize your information from your sources. See chart explaining the differences. See this PDF for examples of the differences: Plagiarism: What is it? by Indiana University's Writing Tutorial Services.

Paraphrasing vs. Summarizing

Quotes	Paraphrase	Summarize
Exact phrase(s)	A more detailed description	Taking the main idea from a source
Direct passage of a sentence or more	Usually focusing on a few sentences	Often focusing on several paragraphs or an  entire article
Quotation Marks (" ") are needed as well as the parenthetical documentation or intext citation	Need parenthetical documentation or intext citation of source	Need parenthetical documentation or intext citation of source

Another way to compare paraphrasing and summarizing:

If you watched CSI last night and you came to school telling your friends about what happened during the episode, you would be summarizing.
But if you watched CSI last night and you told your friends about a specific scene, you would be paraphrasing.

What would these two have in common? You would still need to creidt your source (the CSI episode) by including parenthetical documentation (intext citations) with a complete work cited page.

Sample Parenthetical References in MLA Style http://www.aresearchguide.com/sampleparenth.html

Five minute video:

Cheating & Plagiarism

Definition- anytime someone uses someone else's words, works, test or assignment answers, or ideas and then claiming it is your own.

Examples:

1) Hiring someone to complete, buying, or downloading a project/paper
2) Rewording (paraphasing) someone else's work and not giving credit to author.
3) Not properly citing works, images/pictures, nmusic, video, etc. in a multimedia project, research paper, poster, etc.
4) Sharing electronic files in classes
5) Copying math homework (or any subject)
6) Letting your partner do all the work and placing your name on the final product
7) Looking at someone else's test answers or telling the next section of that class what was on the test
8) Turning in your sibling's old project or having parents do the project

Why Aviod Cheating?

1) You are violating school rules and possible state & federal laws. Consequences from an "F" to a $3,000 fine.

2) You are not learning what you need to be successful in college/technical school and the workforce.

3) Your reputation and character will suffer, "You cheater".

4) You will feel guilty about it at some point and you will missed the opportunity to meet a challenge and succeed.

How You Get Caught

New Technology - programs that find phrases that are from books, databases, and the web.

Teachers Talk - Sometimes a student tries to turn in a classmates assignment from one class in as his/her own in another class.

Teachers Remember - if a sibling had them, they will probably remember the project. They also read one classes tests, lab reports, essays, or papers together, so be carefuly on the line between collaborating and cheating.

Teachers Know Your Writing - If the style of writing or word choice isn't you, it will be questioned.

How to Avoid Cheating

Make the assignment your own - personalize it to you. Write in your own voice and words.

Organize - do NOT wait to the last minute. Keep notes and items together.

Any time you research, record where you found your information and include it with your project in a Work Cited page.

From the Example of a Student Guide to Avoid Cheating page 117:
Johnson, Doug. Learning Right from Wrong in the Digital Age. Worthington, OH: Linworth Publishing, Inc., 2003.

Checklist:

When in doubt, give credit to the author or ask your teacher for help.

What resources have you used and what needs to include parenthetical documentation or intext citations?

Are you qouting anyone or anyone's work? If so, check that the quotation is accurate.

When paraphrasing and summarizing, have you used your own words and voice including the parenthetical documentation or intext citations within your paper/project?

Have you acknowledged in proper MLA format all uses of information for your researched sources?

Does your Work Cited page include all the sources you used within your paper/project?

If you are using a lot of someone's work, especially images, video, etc. ask for permission from that someone to use that data. Contact the creator via e-mail or letter and make sure to list everything you want to use.

 

Links to More Information

Choosing When to Give Credit http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html

Making Sure You Are Safe http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html

 

 

 

.