What is Plagiarism?

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What is Plagiarism?

1. What is it?
2. How can we prevent it?
3. What are the consequences?

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Definition

• Academic Dishonesty
• Acts of academic dishonesty include, but are not
  limited to, the following

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Plagiarism

• Cheatingdistribution or use of external
  assistance relating to an examination, test,
  quiz, homework, project, or the like, without
  express permission of the teacher.
• Fabricationfalsification or invention of data,
  citation, or other authority in an academic
  exercise.
• Plagiarismuse of another's ideas, words, or work
  as one's own. Plagiarism includes, but is not
  limited to, the misuse of published material,
  internet material, and the work of other
  students.
• Theft or Alteration of Materialsunauthorized
  taking, concealment, or alteration of student or
  teacher materials.

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Copying from Another Student

• Hey, did you do the homework in Mr(s). Xs
  class? Can I borrow it?
• Sure.
• And the student copies the answers and turns them
  in as his/her own work.

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Is This Plagiarism?
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Copying from Another Student

• This is the most difficult form of plagiarism for
  teachers to catch. If the answer for 1 on the
  homework is A, or 4x, or George Washington, or
  anything that is a short answer, it is difficult
  for the teacher to determine if a student found
  the answer by doing the work, or by copying it
  from a fellow student.

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How Can You Prevent It

• Listen to your teachers when they tell you
• dont share your work.
• if you copy, then you are not doing the
  brainworkthe brainwork is why you were given the
  homework to do in the first place.
• that the information you did not process (because
  you copied) will most likely show up again on a
  test
• you will have to study more because you have
  spent your study time copying instead of doing
  the brainwork from the beginning

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What Teachers Might Do

• Teachers can design a variety of assignments so
  the majority of your homework assignments are not
  short answer or fill in the blank. Teachers can
• ask students to show work.
• grade worksheet or short answer types of
  assignments for credit only, then, to ensure
  students know the material, give a homework quiz
  asking students to answer questions relating to
  the questions that they did earlier on their
  homework.
• confront students that teachers see copying
  homework while sitting with their friends before
  school or before class. Give the copied work to
  the students teacher.

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Is This Plagiarism?
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Background Info

• The assignment was to choose one of the English
  language arts state standards, write a response
  to literature essay about a self-selected book,
  and apply the standard to that book.
• This student chose to write about Tuck
  Everlasting, a book usually read in elementary or
  early middle school.

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Indicators

• The green text in her conclusion could be a
  paraphrase of the standard, and is not
  necessarily plagiarism.
• The standard this student selected was
• 3.9 Explain how voice, persona, and the
  choice of a narrator affect characterization and
  the tone, plot, and credibility of a text.

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Indicators

• However, the red text in her conclusion is
  quite sophisticated in word choice (and generic
  in detail), and did not match the writing style
  of the earlier part of the essay.
• TurnItIn.com indicates that the red text has
  been plagiarized.

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In addition to copying the text, she made no
attempt to quote it directly (with quotation
marks) or paraphrase it--both of which would
require a parenthetical reference to cite the
source.
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Is This Plagiarism?
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Background

• The student was asked to pick a place he had
  visited, ask a question about the place, and
  research the answer.
• This student selected the Coliseum in Rome, but
  the title immediately indicates that he has not
  answered a question about the Coliseum instead,
  this paper becomes a basic My Report on the
  Coliseum type of writing.

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Background

• Thus, the introduction becomes a series of facts.
• He does give credit to two sources.
• So, is this plagiarism, or is he simply a student
  who didnt quite complete the assignment?

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TurnItIn.com

• This is a cut and paste version of the
  TurnItIn.com report. Overall, the report
  indicates that 69 of the paper was copied from
  Internet sources.

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Know the Assignment

• Many writing assignments ask questions about a
  topic--it is more difficult to find a paper on
  the Internet about How did the Coliseums
  structure and type of entertainment affect class
  distinctions in Roman society? then it is to
  find one simply about the Coliseum.
• The more you have to pull facts from various
  sources, arrange them in your order, rewrite them
  in your words--the more the paper becomes your
  own thoughtful work, and not a copy of someone
  elses thought process.

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Example of Sentence Combining

• Practice finding a few facts then combining the
  facts into a sentence that you write on your own.

Actors often had to be creative with special
effects in plays during Shakespeares time,
hiding bladders full of pigs blood under their
costumes to create bloody fight scenes, or
rolling cannonballs to sound like thunder
(Martin).
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Note Taking

• Take notes. Writing one fact per notecard, etc.
  forces you to paraphrase and creates fewer
  chances for you to lift chunks of text
  (plagiarize) from your sources.
• Notecards also allow you to combine facts from
  various sources. You can shuffle/organize the
  notecards by topic, which is a great way to use
  synthesis.

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What Can Students Do

• This advice is posted in most English classes and
  in the library. The poster advertises a book by
  Barry Gilmore about plagiarism.

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Consequences

• In all instances of academic dishonesty, a
  referral will be placed in the student's
  cumulative folder and parents will be contacted.
• Any student guilty of academic dishonesty will
  receive a zero on the affected activity. That
  zero may not be dropped from the record and will
  be averaged into the student's grade. Upon a
  second instance of dishonesty in either semester
  of that course, the student will be removed from
  that course and receive a final grade of F/U.

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PlagiarismConclusion

• Ask the teachers expectations for an assignment
  if you are unclear.
• Learn the consequences and expect to be held
  accountable.
• Practice combining/synthesizing facts and asking
  research questions.
• Note Here at LJHS we use MLA format for research
  papers.

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• Presentation by Carole LeCren
• La Jolla High School
• September 2009