Listed below is a document about plagiarism. Below that are three summaries of the document by previous students. After reading both the handout and the summaries with your group mates, determine which one is the "best" of the three in terms of the criteria for assessing summaries. You might want to refer back to your summary handout to help with this.
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is literary theft. When a person takes the thoughts or writings of another and presents them as her own, without acknowledging the original source, she commits the act of plagiarism.
Common ways students plagiarize:
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copying from another source, such as a magazine or web article, without acknowledging the author of the article; | |
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integrating sentences or paragraphs from another source into their own work; | |
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copying, with or without changes, an entire article, paper, chapter or even an essay written by another student. |
If plagiarism is confirmed, there are several possible courses of action:
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the piece of work will be failed, without an opportunity to "make it up;" | |
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a face-to-face meeting of instructor and student will be arranged to discuss the plagiarism; | |
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if necessary, an appointment with the Dean, the instructor and the student will be arranged | |
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possible failure of the course. |
Avoiding the Problem
- If you borrow words, sentences, or paragraphs directly from another source, put the borrowed words in quotation marks and treat them as a quotation. Use MLA documentation to cite your source.
- When paraphrasing, introduce the paraphrase with the article's author and title.
- If you use other authors' ideas, give them credit.
- If you summarize a piece of writing in your paper, be sure to acknowledge the author.
10/21/1995
By Jan Strever
Model 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. Plagiarism
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 1995. Do not be labeled a "literary thief," acknowledge sources of information.