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Plagiarism! What is it? Why is it bad? How can it be prevented?
The student in this picture is searching for his sources. This paper was written and included here to enable the student to avoid plagiarism in his or her writing, speaking, or assignments. The work that is plagiarized, is not your work. It deserves the grade of F. How can you, the caring student, prevent this from happening?
Plagiarism as defined in The Random House College Dictionary, Revised Edition, page1014 is "1. the appropriation or imitation of the language, ideas, and thoughts of another author, and the representation of them as one¹s original work. 2.something appropriated and presented in this manner." In other words, the use of someone else's work is plagiarism or in plain words it is stealing.
Stealing? Yes, that is why plagiarism is considered to be so bad. Whenever you take something that is not yours, whenever you "borrow" something without permission, that is stealing. In college, plagiarism is considered a major crime that gets the plagiarizer an F in the course, or at some schools the plagiarizer is asked to leave school (thrown out of school).
How can this be prevented? By giving credit to the author whose words and thoughts you used in your work. Even if the author's thoughts were rewritten into your words, the ideas are still not yours. It is "academic dishonesty" to use what someone else thought, wrote, or created and claim that it is yours. The purpose of research is to discover these ideas, to learn about topics you did not know, and to improve your discovery skills. Once you have done this research, you give credit by the use of endnotes or the author-date method to the owner of the material that you used. This is not open for discussion, this is what you must do when you do a research paper.
Will your paper be one giant endnote? Probably! What, at this point, are you an expert at? What do you know independently of anyone else? What have you created? This is why your assignment ia a RESEARCH PAPER! The content of your paper or project has been pulled together from a variety of sources, that is research! We do not expect high school students to be experts in any subject. We expect high school students to learn about their topics through research, class, and study. The time may come when what you create will be quoted by students doing research. Right now, however, is not that time.!
Through research, the student is able to pull together various authors', or experts' thoughts into one location; the student's research paper. Because this material was never placed together in one location before, endnotes are used to show which idea came from which author and in what order they appeared. Thus, one giant endnote!
Some acceptable methods of giving credit to your sources are:
1. Endnote method-In the body of the paper you place a number(endnote number) at the end of the sentence or paragraph that number refers to. This indicates which source this idea is from and protects you, the student from plagiarism. Then on the Endnote Page, you list the number and what source you used at that location in your paper.
2. Author-date method-In the body of the paper you place a parenthesis, then the Author's last name, and the copyright date, the end parenthesis. The Author-Date Bibliography lists by author the sources you used to write your paper.
3. MLA style-This is for your English research paper. You will receive a book on how to cite the authority.
Other methods of giving credit to the author do exist; however, the key is to use one method throughout your paper and to make sure that there is no doubt that you are not claiming someone else's work as your own.
Remember, there are different types and kinds of writing assignments. We are specifically dealing with the Research Paper in this essay. If you were writing a short story, a poem, or an original essay, you would not be giving credit to a source because there would not be one. You would be the source, as what you wrote was your own original work. The important thing to remember is, you are researching someone else's thoughts and including them in your research paper. By using the method your teacher instructed you to use, you give credit to your different sources. When in doubt, cite your source. Any questions ask for guidance from your teacher or librarian.