Listed below are three summaries by previous students. Read them together with your group mates and determine which one is the "best" of the three in terms of the criteria for assessing summaries.
1.
Avoiding Failure in Writing
Many college students, many times, have asked that ever dreaded question while writing
an essay paper, "Should I quote this person?" The proper answer to this question
could, in essence, determine the rest of the students' life. If they do not use quotations
and give credit where credit is due, this is defiantly considered "plagiarism."
In colleges it is considered deadly to ones' college career resulting in a "0,"
or even a failure from the course. In essence, anytime a student takes information from
some source other than their own original brain, it is considered plagiarism. This is a
BIG no-no.
2.
To plagiarize is to claim to have personally done the work, research, writings, etc, when
in fact the author/creator is another individual to whom one has not given the proper
credit for and to the person that did do such work. Quoting a source is not plagiarism,
it's when credit had been neglected to be included in the works. A good prevention to keep
from being accused of plagiarism is to always quote the original works, no matter how
seemingly insignificant the work reference may be to a project as a whole. Always use MLA
documentation to cite sources. Being that the potential consequences for plagiarism are
severe, it would be in good interests to keep in mind the rules regarding documentation
and source material when writing a paper.
3.
THOUGHTS OR WORDS NOT MY OWN
In summarizing Jan Strever's handout on plagiarism published on the Internet, there are severe consequences to using another person's thoughts or words. When choosing to use thoughts or words of another person, give credit to that person. Quotation marks are to be used when text is taken directly from another source. When using text from another source, list the author name and the source of information in writing. Even when summarizing another author's work, acknowledge the author by name, as in Plagiarism by Jan Strever 1997. Do not be labeled a "literary thief," acknowledge sources of information.