Library Lessons: Plagiarism & How to Avoid It

Plagiarism

The practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.

Early 17th century: from Latin plagiarius ‘kidnapper’ (from plagium ‘a kidnapping’, from Greek plagion) + -ism.

Oxford English Dictionary

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/plagiarism

Sutherland Code of Conduct

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY – CHEATING or PLAGIARISM 

Teachers who suspect students of cheating on tests, exams or handing in assignments done by other individuals without appropriate acknowledgement in a bibliography will inform the administration and the incident will be investigated. Confirmed incidences of cheating will be recorded in the student’s discipline file.

Possible Consequences for First Time Cheating or Plagiarism on Assignments or Tests: 

• being given a zero for the test or assignment 
• being required to explain their actions to their parents and the parents being requested to contact the teacher before the student can return to class 
• having all their other teachers informed of their behaviour 
• being required to meet with the grade administrator 

A subsequent incident in the same or another course could result in: 

• a letter in the student’s permanent file 
• a failing grade and/or removal from the course 
• deemed ineligible for: Honour Roll, awards, scholarships 
• prohibited from participating in grad events declined requests for reference letters 

From Sutherland’s website – About our School – Sutherland Code of Conduct

Search Plagiarism in Google

Write down the number of results retrieved, listed on the right hand side of the screen.

Search Plagiarism in EBSCO

Write down the number of results retrieved.

Read:

Simon Fraser Accuses 47 Students of Cheating

from CNN

You Quote it, You Note it!

Do the Plagiarism Tutorial from Acadia University. Click on the above link.

At the end, write down your score from the tutorial exercises.

Paraphrasing is putting someone else's words into your own words.   

It shows an understanding of the subject and academic honesty. 

Read carefully because you cannot paraphrase something you do not understand.

What is Paraphrasing?

Paraphrasing is putting something into your own words the ideas or thoughts of someone else.   Restatement of a piece of text giving the meaning. (A summary is a brief review of content  which provides the reader with the main ideas but does not expand on any of the content).

Why do we need to paraphrase?

• To better understand something you have read.
• When writing, we include source material as evidence to support our argument(s).  OR we may believe the evidence to be invalid and want to argue against it.  Ideas that are not our own must be represented accurately and clearly. 
• Using another author's exact words when not directly quoted is plagiarism or academic dishonesty.

Characteristics of a good paraphrase:

• Includes only the author's ideas.
• Is accurate and fair.
• Is entirely in your own words.
• Is properly cited.

Read and Understand

• Read the source material carefully so that you understand it. 
• Identify the main ideas/claims and pieces of evidence.
• When taking notes from a source, write them in your own words - this helps avoid plagiarism later.
• Make sure you cite the source.

Strategies for Paraphrasing

• Do not paraphrase more than a paragraph at a time.
• Reword - replace vocabulary with synonyms when you can - a thesaurus is good for this.  Names, titles and dates etc., cannot be replaced.
• Rearrange words to make a new sentence. Change the order of ideas presented in a paragraph if it makes sense.
• If the ideas are complex break them down into smaller pieces.
• Read the text - look away and pretend you are explaining this to someone who doesn't know anything about it.  Put into your own words using your writing style.
• Paraphrase only what is key to your purpose.
• Make sure you represent the author clearly.
• Recheck to ensure that your paraphrase has the same meaning as the author.
• Indicate that the ideas presented are attributed to the author.

Rearrange: Can you move some words or phrases around?

Reword: Can you replace any words with synonyms?

Realize: Some information (names, dates, titles, etc.) cannot be changed.

Recheck: Did you include the important information? Does it make sense?

from the University of Alberta

Academic Integrity Policies from Post Secondary Institutions

BCIT - Academic Integrity

CAPU - Academic Integrity

SFU   - Avoiding Plagiarism - What are the Consequences of Plagiarism?

SFU  - Academic Integrity Violations

UBC  - Plagiarism