PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism: when
someone copies something that was written by someone else and presents it as
his or her own work.
Plagiarism has become widespread due to the
ease of copying and pasting text from the internet. The most common practice is
for a student to copy whole blocks of text (or even entire papers) off the
internet, and then maybe change a few things around to try to disguise the
copying. The practice has become so common in some high schools and even
colleges that many people don't even see it as a form of cheating.
Make no mistake about it: plagiarism is
cheating. But some confusion about plagiarism is perhaps
understandable. After all, when a student does research for an assignment,
he/she is gathering information about a topic from other sources and presenting
that information. Where does proper research for an assignment end and
plagiarism begin?
·
How
to avoid plagiarism
THE RIGHT WAY TO DO RESEARCH FOR AN
ASSIGNMENT: Gather information on a topic from several sources, process it,
organize it, and present it using your own words and own organization.
This is GOOD!
THE
The bottom line: to avoid plagiarism,
use your OWN WORDS and your OWN ORGANIZATION in
ALL writing you do for assignments, tests, and reports.
It is OK (in fact necessary) to copy terms and
definitions. It is NOT OK to copy whole phrases and entire paragraphs.
If you do copy a phrase or paragraph, you must put quotation marks ("
") around it, and cite the source (give the author and title of the
publication, web site, etc.). In general I prefer that you NOT quote entire
blocks of text. Rather, process the information and restate it using your own
words and own organization. There is nothing like the act of writing things
down in your own words to make you really learn concepts. And the act of
writing for yourself makes you a better writer! (Whereas
copying never made anyone a better writer.)
· How professors catch plagiarism
Computer technology has made plagiarism easy
to commit, but… computer technology has also made plagiarism easy to catch. Professors today have access to effective tools
designed to detect plagiarism by searching for matches between student work and
material available on the internet. This includes papers available at cheater web sites.
If I suspect an assignment or student term
paper is partially or entirely plagiarized, I routinely submit the assignment
to a plagiarism-detection web site, such as turnitin.com. A report comes back showing which internet
sites match text in the student’s paper or assignment, and how much of the text
matches, word-for-word.
·
Consequences
of submitting plagiarized work.
Consequences of plagiarism will
depend on how egregious the plagiarism is.
If a student submits a 100% copied paper
(like one purchased from a cheater web site), this represents the worst form of
plagiarism, and will result in:
1. Zero credit for the assignment.
2. Communication with the student regarding the offense.
3. Recommendation by the professor to the Vice President of Student Services
that the student be suspended from the class.
More common is so-called “soft plagiarism,”
where the student copies bits and pieces of material from several different
sources and stitches it together with perhaps some of their own writing mixed
in. This is still plagiarism, but it is
somewhat less blatant. For this type of
plagiarism, I have the following policy:
1. Zero credit for the assignment.
2. Communication with the student regarding the offense.
3. Warning that a repeat offense could result in recommendation that the
student be suspended from the class.
If you
have any questions or need further clarification, please contact me. Thanks for
your attention.
Keith Meldahl, Professor of Geology
& Oceanography,
kmeldahl@miracosta.edu