EngC 1011 University Writing and Critical Reading

Avoiding Plagiarism

Source: Kate Rattenborg, University Libraries and Student Writing Center http://uwrite.umn.edu/plagiarism.htm

Avoiding Plagiarism: Plagiarism is the representation of someone else's thoughts, ideas, words, or scholarship as your own.

A good rule of thumb: always err on the side of over-acknowledgment. You are guilty of plagiarizing if: 1. You directly quote (or copy) a source without placing that material in quotation marks and acknowledging your source.

2. You use information from a source, and only slightly alter words or phrases without acknowledging your source and placing quotation marks around direct "borrowings".

3. You use a source's arguments, evidence, main points and/or structure without acknowledging your source. (Even if you do acknowledge your source, unless your assignment is to summarize someone else's argument, this would not be an acceptable paper.)

4. You paraphrase someone else's ideas without acknowledging them.

5. You use "facts" gathered by someone else's research without acknowledging your source.

6. Your ideas or method of analysis have been heavily influenced by someone else's theories and you do not acknowledge your source.

7. Someone else writes your paper or supplies your argument for you.

8. You submit a paper that you obtained from a paper mill, a paper writing service, or "student files".

9. You turn a paper in to more than one class without explicit permission from all professors involved.

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Source: Nancy Johnston http://www.che.umn.edu/SSW/resources/msw_handbook/1998 1999/part_VI/plagiarism.htm

Plagiarism

Prepared by Nancy Johnston, Director of Graduate Studies, (School of Social Work)

In writing your papers in graduate classes, you will almost always need to use the thoughts, ideas and written and spoken words of others. The reader should always be clear about what are your own, original thoughts and what are words from material you are borrowing from others. Plagiarism is the use of others' words and ideas as though they were your own. Plagiarism can range from directly copying others' material without proper citation to another's work without proper acknowledgment and/or citations. In either case, plagiarism constitutes scholastic dishonesty and is an offense under the Student Conduct Code of the University of Minnesota. Students found to have plagiarized material in work that they submit as their own in School of Social Work classes are subject to sanctions that range from a failing grade for that assignment to a failing grade for that course or even expulsion from the School or the University.

If you have any question about when to cite the work of another or whether or not you are using the proper form of citation and reference, you should consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, available in the Bookstore, or a faculty member.

As the APA manual explains, there are a few simple rules for checking yourself on proper citation:

1. When using others' material directly (a direct quote), you must enclose all quoted material in quotation marks and, using APA style, provide the citation with a page number (see below).

2. When paraphrasing another's work, use your own language and style. Don't just rearrange words and sentences. You must still provide a citation for the source (see examples below).

3. Provide a citation, using APA style, for each borrowed item in a reference list at the end of your paper. A reference list is usually what is used in the papers you write; it provides the information that someone would need to look up the sources that you used for your paper. A reference list is different from a bibliography, which is more general to your subject, cites work for background reading or further reading and may include descriptive notes. You should check with your instructor if you are not sure whether they are talking about a reference list or a bibliography. However, your paper must document specifically the sources for your research materials.

The following examples may illustrate the problems that confront students when they write papers. Original material is given and cited (using APA style) and examples of writing using the original material are given. Two of the examples are plagiarized and two examples use acceptable documentation.

An example of original material that you might read and want to include in your paper is found in a book chapter: Plotnick, R.D. (1992). Income support for families with children. In P.J. Pecora, J.K. Whittaker, & A.N. Maluccio (Eds.), The child welfare challenge (pp. 59-90). New York: Aldine De Gruyter.

"Causes of Continuing High Levels of Child Poverty. There are three main reasons why child poverty has remained high. First, because of increases in divorce and the rate of out-of-wedlock births, a larger proportion of children live in single-parent families. The parent is usually the mother. Such families are much more likely to be poor than two-parent families because a single mother's earning power tends to be low, the absent fathers often fail to contribute child support and the public assistance benefits are low. This demographic shift has helped increase poverty among children. Second, during the past 20 years, an increasing proportion of heads of families have been unable to earn enough income to keep their dependents out of poverty. This is partly because the distribution of earnings has become more unequal. Third, real government income support benefits for children declined from the early 1970s to the early 1980s (Committee on Ways and Means, 1985, p. 182) and have not recovered in recent years. We will return to income support policy issues later."

EXAMPLES OF PLAGIARISM:

One version of the unacceptable use of the original material is:

There are several reasons why poverty among children is high: increases in divorce and out-of-wedlock births; more heads of families have been unable to earn enough income in the past 20 years; and from the early 1970s to the early 1980s government support benefits for children have decreased.

The above example is unacceptable because the writer has just extracted from another's writing words and facts that are not his/her own. If this writer were an expert in child poverty and knew from his/her own research that the above reasons for poverty were true, this writer could probably produce such a paragraph. However, your instructor is unlikely to think that you are the original author of the above. What has been done here is paraphrasing of Plotnick's work and not acknowledging the original author.

Another unacceptable version:

There are several reasons for child poverty: divorce, out-of-wedlock births, low single mother's earning power, low incomes and decrease in government supports for children since the early 1980s. In addition average real income hasn't grown much in recent years and also income distribution has become less equal (Plotnick, 1992).

This example is also plagiarism. Although the writer has given a citation, it is not clear how much of the paragraph is from Plotnick, i.e., the whole paragraph or just the last sentence. The writer has also copied directly from the original material, changing a few things around, changing a few words, etc. Again, the writer would have to be an expert in child poverty to make the above statements without documentation.

Acceptable uses of the original material:

Researchers who study income support policies point to several reasons why child poverty in particular has remained high in recent years. Plotnick (1992) suggests three main reasons: increases in divorce rates and out-of-wedlock births which mean more single parents (usually women) with lower earning power; lower wages; and a decrease in government support benefits for children. To emphasize the latter, Plotnick points out that "...real government income support benefits for children declined from the early 1970s to the early 1980s (Committee on Ways and Means, 1985, p. 182) and have not recovered in recent years" (p. 64).

This version acknowledges the expert source at the outset and properly cites the material so that the reader could easily find it. A citation within a quotation should never be omitted (the Committee on Ways and Means, above), but you need not include it in your reference list. In fact, it would be dishonest to include it in your reference list unless you went to the original source (as given by Plotnick) and read for yourself what the Committee testimony had to say. Then, in your paper, you could quote the Committee data directly, again using proper documentation.

Another acceptable use of the material would be:

The discussion about child poverty often revolves around whether policy makers believe that it is caused by governmental policies or by the parents or guardians of the children. It is difficult to separate the causes. For example, Plotnick (1992) cites reasons for high child poverty rates that could be blamed on either or both individuals or governmental policies: more divorces and out-of-wedlock births which lead to lower incomes (single parents are usually women with low incomes); a low rate of increase in average earning power; and declining governmental benefits for children. Plotnick further comments that "absent fathers often fail to contribute child support," but also that "public assistance benefits are low" (p. 64).

The writer here not only correctly cited the authority but, in the writer's own words, has begun to analyze the arguments and material being used. This writing is what we strive for, that is, an understanding of the research for your paper and an effort to compare, analyze and synthesize it in your own words.

The authors you read and other sources of information (interviews, legislative hearings, reports, videos, etc.) should be partners that support your understanding and expression of your own ideas. Just be sure always to be clear about what is yours and what is theirs!