What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is the representation of another author's language,thoughts,ides or expressions, as one's own original work. Plagiarism is considered academic is dishonesty and a breach of journalistic ethics.
COMMON CAUSES of PLAGIARISM
You could think that you would never plagiarize. However, many plagiarism cases are the result of negligence, ignorance, or a lack of self-confidence or knowledge . Here are some reasons why even good students sometimes plagiarize:
Last minute panic
Feelings of insufficiency
Misunderstanding what constitutes plagiarism
Muddy note taking
Slavishly copying someone’s ideas, often in the same order
Working on an assignment with others and handing in similar papers
Citing sources in the bibliography, but not in the paper itself
Yet even when plagiarism is incautious and unintended, ignorance is no excuse. You need to cite your sources and present your own argument.
PARAPHRASING
Sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re plagiarizing. This is especially the case when you are paraphrasing the ideas of others.
A paraphrase is when you put someone else’s ideas in your own words and provide only a citation (so no quotation marks).
Let’s say you’ve read the following passage about the Aztec ruler Montezuma, and you might like to limitate some ideas :
An inadequate paraphrase is one where you retain many of the original words and phrases.
This paraphrase is too close to the original, and you should just use a quotation instead.
Of course, you are allowed to repeat key words (reign, fear, Cihuacoatl, etc.), but you should not copy an entire phrase (Motecuhzoma ordered the Cihuacoatl), and you should as much as possible change the wording.
CITING COMMON FACTS
There is a extent to what needs to be cited. You do not need to provide a source for information that is extensively known.
Here are some examples of the kinds of things that do not need citation:
famous dates (e.g., the year Columbus sailed the ocean blue)
well known facts (e.g., the atomic mass of Cadmium)
the main outlines of historical events (e.g., the Protestant Reformation)
proverbs and maxims (e.g., don’t look a gift horse in the mouth)
It can of course be difficult to know whether a fact is well known, particularly if you are not familiar with the subject matter. One way to check is to consider whether multiple sources share the same information without providing any citation. That’s usually a good indication that you’re dealing with a universally acknowledged fact.
For instance, you don’t need a source if you’re claiming that spiders have eight legs or that the mountain gorilla is in danger of extinction.
Elsewhere, many apparent facts can be contested. Few sources, for instance, agree about the number of casualties in World War I or about the approximate age of the earth. In fact, almost any time you’re dealing with statistics you should provide a citation.
At last , if you are writing about literature, there is no need to quote or paraphrase when you’re summarizing the plot of a novel or short story. You should be able to come up with a plot summary yourself.
DEFINING ORIGINALITY
Students mostly voice their frustration with research by saying, but I didn’t know anything about this topic before I began researching it. So how can I avoid plagiarizing?
This is a vested objection. Students can feel they have no original ideas and are just regurgitating material from various sources.
Fortunately, originality is largely defined by how you interact with the information, not by how much you knew at the start.
Even if you go into a project with very little knowledge, as soon as you start reading various books and articles you will begin to form an opinion. So don’t read passively. Evaluate your sources, crosscheck supposed facts, and synthesize various ideas. In this way you will gradually form your own argument and avoid plagiarism.
It’s quite common for undergraduate research papers to be a patchwork of quotations and paraphrases, but it’s the careful selection and interpretation of the evidence that makes the essay original.
PLAGIARISM CHECKERS
Many institutions use Turnitin, not only to check for plagiarism but also for marking and providing feedback. This tool is primarily meant to aid instructors in detecting borrowed content. Turnitin (the company) also provides a resource that is more directly meant for students. It’s said WriteCheck, and it not only checks for originality, but it also provides grammar tips.
ADVICE TO INSTRUCTORS
Instructors may find it difficult to know how to deal with student excuses, so here is some advice for them. (Students may also find it interesting to know their instructor’s perspective.)
Any experienced instructor has heard all the excuses. Here are just a few examples of what students could said
How can instructors tell if an excuse has merit? While it’s important to be sympathetic (and it doesn’t hurt to have a Kleenex box handy), the focus might stay on the assignment, and less on the life circumstances that may have been a factor. At the beginning of the course, the instructor should have spelled out clearly what constitutes plagiarism is, and what the penalties are. For this reason,the student cannot claim ignorance, and both parties have a clear reference point.
The instructor would also know the institution’s rules inside and out. Too often instructors are much more draconian than the rules themselves. If an essay has a few phrases that are plagiarized, but the rest of the paper has adequate citation, it’s hardly fair to assign an F to the assignment. It would be better to assign a smaller penalty (e.g., a 10% deduction). The instructor thus has the duty to know the rules and to apply them generously in favour of the student.
A CULTURE OF PLAGIARISM
As a society we have a duty to encourage students to believe in themselves, to trust that they can be great independent thinkers. That’s the only way to deal with plagiarism properly.
Actually you said the truth and informed it in a good manner