| What is Plagiarism? |
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| Plagiarism is a difficult concept to
define. It
includes a range of actions from failure to use proper citation to
wholesale cheating. A student who plagiarizes may do so
unintentionally or it could be a deliberate adoption or
reproduction of ideas or words or statements of another person as
one’s own without acknowledgement.
This exercise will focus on the accidental forms of
plagiarism. |
| Most people when they write they are
not consciously choosing to engage in plagiarism so… |
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| Why do some students engage in some form of
plagiarism? |
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Accidental
plagiarism happens when a writer does not intend to
plagiarize, but fails to cite his or her sources
completely and correctly. Careful notetaking and a clear
understanding of the rules for quoting, paraphrasing, and
summarizing sources can help prevent this. |
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Some
students neglect to budget enough time to adequately
accomplish a paper, presentation or other project.
They then engage in plagiarism to finish their task.
To avoid facing a situation where you do not have enough
time to complete a project use the University of
Minnesota's Assignment
Calculator. |
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| Some
tips for avoiding accidental plagiarism when you use sources: |
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Cite
every piece of information that is not a) the result of
your own research, or b) common knowledge. This includes
opinions, arguments, and speculations as well as facts,
details, figures, and statistics. Common knowledge is a
particular fact that most people would know and that is
found in many sources.
A good example of common knowledge is that Martin
Luther King Jr.
was a civil rights leader. |
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Use
quotation marks every time you use the author's words.
(For longer quotes, indenting the whole quotation has the
same effect as quotation marks.) |
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At
the beginning
of the first
sentence in which you quote, paraphrase, or summarize,
make it clear that what comes next is someone else's idea: |
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According
to Smith… |
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Jones
says… |
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In
her 1987 study, Robinson proved… |
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At
the end of the last sentence containing quoted, paraphrased, or summarized
material, insert a parenthetical
citation to show where the material came from: |
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The
St. Martin's Handbook
defines plagiarism as "the use of someone
else's words or ideas as [the writer's] own
without crediting the other person" (Lunsford
and Connors 602). |
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(Notice
the use of brackets to mark a change in the
wording of the original.) |
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| Applying
these tips: Avoiding two common forms of accidental plagiarism |
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| 1.
Paraphrases with no citation |
| Because
a paraphrase is supposed to contain all of the author's
information and none of your own commentary, a paraphrase with no
citation is an example of plagiarism. The St.
Martin's Handbook defines an appropriate paraphrase as
follows: |
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A
paraphrase
accurately states all the relevant information from a
passage in your own
words and phrasing, without any additional comments or
elaborations [it] always restates all
themain points of the passage in the same order and in
about the same number of words. (Lunsford and Connors 596) |
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Lunsford and Connors go on to give two examples of unacceptable paraphrases: one that uses the author's words, and one that uses the author's sentences structures (597).
Lunsford and Connors also state that "even for acceptable paraphrases you must include a citation in your essay identifying the source of the information" (597). This point is crucial: without the information about the source, an appropriate paraphrase becomes plagiarism.
Even if you have avoided using the author's words, sentences structure, or style, an unattributed paraphrase is plagiarism because it presents the same information in the same order. |
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| 2.
Misplaced citations |
If you use a paraphrase or direct quotation, it is important to place the reference at the very end of all the material cited. Any quoted, paraphrased, or summarized material that comes after the reference is plagiarized: it looks like it is supposed to be your own idea.
This is one reason why accurate notetaking is so important; it is possible to forget which words are yours and which are the original writers. |
| Original
Source: |
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"Paraphrasing material helps you digest a passage, because chances are you can't restate the passage in your own words unless you grasp its full meaning. When you incorporate an accurate paraphrase into your essay, you show your readers that you understand that source." (Lunsford and Connors 596) |
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| Plagiarism
(misplaced citation): |
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Lunsford and Connors say that paraphrasing is useful because "[p]araphrasing material helps you digest a passage, because chances are you can't restate the passage in your own words unless you grasp its full meaning" (596). When you incorporate an accurate paraphrase into your essay, you show your readers your understanding of that source. |
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| The reader would logically assume that the sentence following the citation is your own comment on the quotation, when it is actually part of the original quote. |
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| Finally,
a point about multiple citations from the same source: cite them
all individually. It
is not adequate to give one citation at the end of the paragraph
for a bunch of individual points abstracted from a source. |
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| Parenthetical
citations are intended to make citing your sources easy to do;
don't be shy about using them. |
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Example
of acceptable paraprase: putting the idea in your own words.
(Taken
from Lunsford and Connors 597-98.) |
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Original |
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But Frida's outlook was vastly different from that of the Surrealists. Her art was not the product of a disillusioned European culture searching for an escape from the limits of logic by plumbing the subconscious. Instead, her fantasy was a product of her temperament, life, and place; it was a way of coming to terms with reality, not of passing beyond reality into another realm.
Hayden Herrera, Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo (258) |
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Paraphrase |
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As Herrera explains,
Frida's surrealistic vision was unlike that of the European Surrealists. While their art grew out of
their disenchantment with society and their desire to explore the subconscious mind as a
refuge from rational thinking, Frida's vision was an outgrowth of her own personality and life experiences in Mexico . She used her surrealistic images to
understand better her actual life, not to create a dreamworld (258). |
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Note:
The changes in wording and sentence structure in the paraphrase are
underlined. |
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