Plagiarism 201

Core Message• Use others’ information

honestly and ethically

• What does this mean?• Never cut and paste• Never copy – always paraphrase – unless you

use quotation marks and cite• Cite, cite, cite – parenthetical & Works Cited

A refresher on plagiarism

• http://www.youtube.com/user/jmacias8

• Did you learn a new word?• Collusion• Complete plagiarism• Partial plagiarism• Word Switch

What the surveys show….

2008 Donald McCabe/Rutgers U. study – • 95% of high school students say they have

cheated during their schooling• 64% report one or more instances of serious

testing/cheating (copying from someone else, helping someone else cheat, using cheat sheets)

• 58% acknowledged one or more instances of plagiarism

• 90% cheat on homework

More surveys

Denise Pope/Stanford U.• 80% of honors and AP students cheat – they

have the most to loseJosephson Institute of Ethics• 65% of athletes admit to cheating – varsity level

in football, baseball, basketball; in women’s sport = softball

• Less than 2% of cheaters get caught and only 1% are punished

Think About This………

• “…if you think you have to cheat in order to succeed, then your choice is between not cheating and not succeeding. If, on the other hand, you believe you can succeed without cheating, though it may be harder, there’s a much greater chance you will resist the temptation.” (Michael Josephson)

Cheating and plagiarism are on the rise. Why is that?

1. The internet – Isn’t all the stuff on there free to use? Without attributing it to anybody?It makes plagiarism simple, easy and anonymous.

2. High profile adults acting badly Adults are not providing a moral compass.

One culprit – Kaavya Viswanathan

The story breaks• http://archives.nbclearn.co

m/portal/site/k-12/collectionnavigator?cuecard=2094

Interview with Katie Couric• http://archives.nbclearn.co

m/portal/site/k-12/collectionnavigator?cuecard=2194

Academic Honesty

• When you say you did the work yourself, you actually did it.

• When you rely on someone else’s work, you cite it.

• When you use someone else’s words, you quote them openly and accurately, and you cite them, too.

Bottom Line

• Producing a collage of found passages and ideas from the internet, with no original sentences and no sustained thought, means you have not learned a thing.

• Plagiarism is more than a moral issue – you don’t learn if you don’t do the work.

What do you think?Problem: Solution:

Avoiding Plagiarism

3 steps to follow:Step 1 – Take good notes

Step 2 – ParaphraseStep 3 – Cite your sources

Step 1 - Taking Good Notes

• Read all the way through the information first.• Highlight what’s important for your

topic.• Use bullets for the most important

pieces of information. • Never take notes in complete sentences.

Step 2 - Paraphrasing

• Paraphrasing is restating the main ideas from an information source in your own words, while giving credit to the creator of the idea or information.

• Paraphrasing indicates that you have understood what you read, since you can re-state the information in your own words.

• Rule of thumb – never more than 4 consecutive words.

Practice Note-Taking

Of the more than 1000 bicycling deaths each year, three-fourths are caused by head injuries. Half of those killed are school-age children. One study concluded that wearing a bike helmet can reduce the risk of head injury by 85 percent. In an accident, a bike helmet absorbs the shock and cushions the head.

(“Bike Helmets: Unused Lifesavers.” Consumer Reports May 1990:348. Print.)

What facts would you pick out?

Bulleted Notes

• 1000 bicycling deaths/year• ½ school-age children• ¾ deaths caused by head injuries• Bike helmet – reduce risk 85%• Helmet absorbs shock/cushions

Paraphrasing Practice

Notes:• 1000 bicycling

deaths/year• ½ school-age children• ¾ deaths caused by

head injuries• Bike helmet – reduce

risk 85%• Helmet takes

shock/cushions

Paraphrase:• The use of a helmet is the

key to reducing bicycling fatalities, which are due to head injuries 75% of the time. By cushioning the head upon impact, a helmet can reduce accidental injury by as much as 85%, saving the lives of hundreds of victims annually, half of whom are school children.

What is important here?

Turnitin.com is a plagiarism detection service to which many high schools and colleges subscribe. When a student paper is submitted electronically, Turnitin checks for plagiarism and returns a color-coded version of the paper with questionable passages highlighted. Turnitin states that 30% of the papers submitted contain some form of plagiarism.

Turnitin checks papers against their database of 12 billion web pages, 40 million student papers, and over 10,000 major news sources. Turnitin can be used as a teaching tool or as punishment. Some schools allow students to run their papers through Turnitin before they are graded.

Bulleted Notes

• Turnitin=subscription service that looks for plagiarized passages or papers

• Checks electronically against websites, news publications and wire services, and other student papers

• Highlights suspicious sections• Finds instances of plagiarism 30% of the time• Used to teach students about plagiarism• Used to catch plagiarists

Paraphrasing Practice• Turnitin=subscription service

that looks for plagiarized passages or papers

• Checks electronically against websites, news publications and wire services, and other student papers

• Highlights suspicious sections• Finds instances of plagiarism

30% of the time• Used to teach students about

plagiarism• Used to catch plagiarists

• Turnitin.com is a subscription service that is used by high schools and colleges to find plagiarism in student papers. The service checks each student paper against internet websites, news publications and wire services and other student papers. Turnitin finds suspicious sections 30% of the time and highlights those passages. Turnitin is sometimes used to teach students about plagiarism ,and sometimes it is used to catch plagiarists.

HomeworkTonight I would like for you to spend ten minutes

working through a tutorial on plagiarism and citing sources created by the Vaughan Memorial Library at Acadia University.

“You Quote It, You Note It!”http://library.acadiau.ca/tutorials/plagiarism/

Bibliography 201

Step 3 – Citing Your Sources

You must give credit for any information you use that does not come out of your own head.

2 ways to cite your sources:• Parenthetical citations = In-Text

citations• Bibliography or Works Cited

Parenthetical Citations• Citing sources within the body of your paper – giving credit where

credit is due INSIDE your writing!

• Inside parentheses, include author name and page number (author’s last name page number). You will notice there is no comma between author and page.

• You are indicating specifically which information came from which source

• Each parenthetical citation should refer clearly to one of the items in the “Works Cited” list at the end of your paper.

• “Works Cited” is the title of your list of sources

What a parenthetical citation looks like:

Harper Lee used her father, A. C. Lee, as the model for Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird. When he was just 29 years old, he defended two black men accused of murder. He lost the case but illustrated that he was a humane, fair-minded man (Shields 93).

From the Works Cited page:

Shields, Charles J. I Am Scout: The Biography of Harper Lee. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2008. Print.

Parenthetical Citations• Term paper mills and cheat sites have multiplied alarmingly over the

last several years. In 1999 there were only 36 such sites, but by the end of 2006 there were more than 250 sites (Gilmore 16). The names of the paper mills say a lot about content and their intended subscribers – Echeat.com, Cheathouse.com, Fratfiles.com, Schoolsucks.com (Lathrop 188). Each site makes promises about what you will get for your money. ItchyBrainsCentral promises that the papers are 100% custom written by “professional and experienced academic writers” (Gilmore 16). Because of this, the papers are expensive, and, if you want the sources used in writing the paper, it will cost you even more. An editor at the New York Times ordered a term paper from three different paper mills. All promised A grade papers that were completely non-plagiarized. Prices ranged from $9.95 a page to several hundred dollars, and all three papers were created by borrowing from internet websites (McGrath n.pag.).

Works Cited

Gilmore, Barry. Plagiarism: Why It Happens, How To Prevent It. Portsmouth:

Heineman, 2008. Print.

Lathrop, Ann, and Kathleen Foss. Guiding Students From Cheating and

Plagiarism to Honesty and Integrity. Westport: Libraries Unlimited, 2005.

Print.

McGrath, Charles. “At $9.95 a Page, You Were Expecting Poetry?” New York

Times 10 Sept. 2008: n. pag. NewsBank Access World News. Web. 3 Sept.

2008.

Now you do it!

• Put the three passages into a logical order.• Add an in-text citation at the end of

each paragraph with the special pen.• Use the Works Cited page to

determine what goes inside the parentheses.

Green – Blue – RedThe citizens of Monroeville, Harper Lee’s hometown, were

proud of her success. A quote from the Monroe Journal, the local newspaper, sums up the local reaction: “Everybody, but everybody, is looking forward to publication…of Nelle Harper Lee’s book, To Kill A Mockingbird…It’s wonderful. The characters are so well defined, it’s crammed and jammed with chuckles, and then there are some scenes that will really choke you up” ( Shields, I 127).

A reporter once asked Harper Lee if the characters in To Kill A Mockingbird were based on real people. Her response: “No, but the people at home think so. The beauty of it, though, is that no two people come up with the same identification. They never think of themselves as being portrayed in the book. They try to identify others whom they know as characters” (Shields, Mockingbird 223).

Ernestine Hardin, the bookseller of Monroeville, ordered one hundred copies of To Kill A Mockingbird for a book signing in Ernestine’s Gift Shop. Townspeople were shocked at the huge number of books. They feared that Ernestine would be left with a large number of unsold copies. Nelle’s father said he would buy whatever books were left (Madden 126).

Citing Your Sources

• MLA (Modern Language Association)

• 7th edition

• 4 essentials: alphabetize citations, period at end of each citation, indent 2nd (and 3rd) lines, double space entire document

LibGuide: Eng 8 Moral Compass Project

• http://westminsterschools.libguides.com/content.php?pid=252606&sid=2085662&mode=preview

Now you do it!• Go to the LibGuide for Eng.8 Moral Compass Project. Under

the tab Electronic Databases, select Biography Reference Bank. Search for Hitler, Adolf. Select the article in Current Biography and then write a citation for this source on one side of your note card. (You can find the form to follow on the LibGuide!)

• Now, go to the following web address:http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler.htmlWrite a correct citation for this internet source on the other side of your index card. Remember to look at the “About” button to figure out your “author.” Follow the Citation Guide for an Internet example.

Correct CitationsAmerican-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. “Adolf

Hitler.” Jewish Virtual Library. Web. 12 Sept. 2011.

“Hitler, Adolf.” Current Biography. Biography Reference Bank. Web. 12 Sept. 2011.

Game Time