By Barbara Gaston

Plagiarism

By Barbara Gaston

Plagiarism has been a problem at MIT, and just about every other school in the world for many years. What is plagiarism and why is it such a problem?

Plagiarism is defined as:

n 1: a piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work 2: the act of plagiarizing; taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own

So what this means is that if you are not writing something using your own ideas and words then you are plagiarising which is a form of cheating. It is unacceptable to use plagiarism in any work that is to be handed in at this or any other school.

That does not mean you can’t quote the words of someone else. This is when you write someone else’s words in such a way that the reader will be quite sure of the difference between your own work and those of the person you are quoting. When you want to quote a paragraph you do this by:

Indenting the paragraph that is being quoted.
Writing the Family name of the person who wrote it in brackets( ) along with the year of publication. If it is from a book, then you should also include the page number.
The author and book that are being quoted from should then be fully referenced in your reference list at the end of your essay.

What this looks like is this:

The Internet is a vast, rapidly growing network of over a billion electronic pages that are fully accessible to our students. It is an incredible resource for young, bright minds. However, not all aspects of this resource are positive. One of the primary concerns facing teachers is that millions of computer-savvy students find it easy to use this massive library of information to plagiarize material, to use someone else's intellectual property as their own without citations or credit. (Owens et al 2001)

If you only want to quote a few words you need to do this “like this so that it is obvious that it was said by someone else” (Gaston 2005)

You can also talk in the third person. As Barbara Gaston wrote in her book Talk a lot book, “It is sometimes better to use someone else’s words, but always have faith in your own words and ideas.”

When lecturers set essays they want to know what you have learnt about a topic. They know you can cut and paste that is not what is being assessed. You need to show that you have read the information you have researched or that has been provided to you and that you have understood it. They also want to know that you can critically evaluate the material – in other words, “what do you think?”

Many students over the years have said to me that they would rather use someone else’s words that are correct than use their own words that are not going to be as good. This is understandable, but students have to move away from this attitude and instead work on building their own work using their own words.

Taking someone else’s words, changing only a few words and saying they are your own, is plagiarising.

For instance:

Original

If you’ve ever watched a TV detective pursue a culprit, you know that research can be exciting. When an investigator has a goal in sight, the seemingly mundane work of digging through files, interviewing witnesses, and piecing together clues becomes a concentrated and enthusiastic search.

(Aaron 2004)

Unacceptable paraphrasing:

Research can be as exciting as watching a TV detective pursue a culprit. With a goal in sight, mundane work such as digging through files, interviewing witnesses and joining clues can become an enthusiastic search.

This is too like to original and unless it is referenced, it is plagiarism.

This would be acceptable:

Research is like trying to solve a mystery, you need to search for clues and piece them all together to find your answers.

Conclusion

If you want to do well in your assignments one of the most important skills you can learn are how to write in your own words. And if you use someone else’s words, how to reference correctly.

Reference List

Aaron 2004 The Little Brown Essential Book for Writers Fourth Edition, Pearson Longman Retrieved on 7-6-06

Gaston, B. 2005 Talk a lot Book Publisher, Auckland

Owens, T., Atkins, T., Nelson, G., 2001 English Journal. (High school edition). Urbana.Vol.90, Iss. 4; pg. 101, 4 pgs