Plagiarism- and how to avoid it
Plagiarism can be defined as taking the words and/or ideas of another and
passing them off as your own.
When you are asked to write a term paper or a lab report, the intention is that
you research and read appropriate sources, compile and synthesize the concepts
and ideas from those sources, and to then write your paper in your own
words, incorporating your own insights or criticisms. In the case of lab reports, you also need to analyze
data and discuss results.
You need to cite the sources used in your paper, giving credit to those
sources whose concepts, ideas or words you have used, whether you have
directly quoted those sources or have rephrased the facts or ideas in your
own words. Even sources that have no specific author listed such as
government web sites (e.g. NIH, EPA), organizations (e.g., American Heart
Association, Sierra Club) or encyclopedias (Wikipedia, Encyclopedia Britannica) need
to be cited. NOTE- encyclopedias are generally not approved sources of
information in college papers, although you may find them useful in your
initial research. In lab reports, you will need to cite background
information appropriate to introduce and interpret your experiments. You should also cite the source of your
procedures, typically your lab manual, which maybe a published book, an
in-house document, or a web site.
In the sciences, direct quotes are rarely
used. With rare
exception, you should not quote journal articles or web sites. With even
rarer exceptions, do not quote your textbook, lab manual or instructor.
This is in contrast to other areas of scholarship for which you may quote
particular sources directly to support your ideas, for example a critique
of a short story, or the analysis of a political figure. The rare
exceptions in the sciences are when the precise wording of the source is needed
to make a point (e.g., an author made an outrageously wrong statement), or if a
phrase of a famous scientist is particularly well-turned. Another reason
to minimize direct quotes in any writing is that it allows you to string
together the thoughts of others, rather than thinking for yourself.
You can’t turn in a paper that is a string of quotes, even if they
are from cited sources, and call the paper “your work”.
What's a primary source? In many cases your instructor will want a
certain number of primary sources in your paper. Primary sources are those in
which the idea, concept, or information (experimental results) was originally
presented. For lab reports, primary sources are typically used to introduce
your topic, and to help interpret your results in the discussion. Primary sources are typically peer-reviewed
research articles in the sciences, or sometimes reviews/commentaries in
which the author has presented his own conclusion, hypothesis or model. Primary
sources in the sciences are NOT (or very rarely) encyclopedias
(including Wikipedia), descriptions of the work of others in a review article,
or textbooks.
A note for individuals for whom English is not their
native language: Because of the close
relationship between thought and language, and the fact that you may still
think in your native language, writing in English and avoiding plagiarism can
be especially difficult. A suggestion is to write your paper in your own
words in your native language, then translate it into English. Programs
such as Google Translator may be useful for translating journal articles into your
native language, and in translating your paper into English. However, I
cannot vouch for the accuracy of translation, or the effectiveness in
providing correct syntax and grammar of these programs. Although grammar
and spelling are part of your grade, I do make some allowance (if English is
not your native language!) for grammar and usage issues.
Beyond being dishonest (and that is reason enough to
NOT plagiarize), plagiarism has disadvantages that minimize your learning
experience:
It makes you lazy. Writing in your own words is hard work, and it
takes time. Many of us struggle to word things clearly (you are not
alone!). Plagiarism, especially with the myriad sources available on the Web,
is incredibly easy: just a quick copy and paste - you don't even have to type!
You don't think. It is through language that ideas and
thoughts are expressed. By using you own words you are
demonstrating your understanding. If you are using the words of
others, you are expressing someone else's thoughts, not yours. I sometimes give
take home questions and problems in my upper level classes, and occasionally
get "answers" that are copied from the text or a web site.
Other than having some appropriate key words, these "answers"
frequently don't even address the question and can be quite ludicrous in the
context of the question.
You don't read
critically or with full comprehension. Especially in the cut and paste strategies,
you avoid fully reading and digesting the information in your sources.
This can lead to discrepancies and self-contradictions in your paper that
you are unaware of until you get the graded paper returned. You need to
understand the information in your sources to the extent that you can
comfortably describe it to someone in your own words.
You don't learn to write. By relying on the words of others, you don't
learn how to express yourself in writing. Like everything else in life,
practice through doing is the best way to learn.
How to cite
Citation styles vary in the sciences, depending on the specific journal and the
type of paper (review or original research). Many are a variation of the
APA or CSE style. For chemistry, the ACS style is often the preferred
style. For in-text citations, I
personally favor the Name-Year style, which is a style used in many of the
journals in cell and molecular biology. This style uses the first author's last
name and publication year for the in-text citation (e.g., Smith et al., 1988).
The reference list is placed at the end of the paper (see links below for
examples), and the references are listed alphabetically by the first author's
last name. This style is easy to use while writing and editing (you don't
have to renumber everything if you move a paragraph) and the article title in
the reference list allows an easy check to see if the reference is relevant to
the information cited. Details on formatting various sources, including
books, articles and web sites are described in the links below.
http://library.ship.edu/citing
http://guides.libraries.psu.edu/CitationStyles
Other sources - How to
avoid plagiarism.
Below are several links you may find useful. The youtube
videos are brief and informative. However,
a warning regarding paraphrasing techniques that are sometimes described
is that you may focus on mechanical rewording rather than thinking; much
of what we do will require deeper thought to understand and communicate.
1. http://library.ship.edu/avoidplagiarism
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q0NlWcTq1Y
3.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EF5eFeJMplA
4. https://wts.indiana.edu/writing-guides/index.html