I copied the first sentence.
August 5, 2005 10:55 AM Subscribe
How to Recognize Plagiarism. (From Indiana University Bloomington.)
Here's some examples of malfeasance in case you, like me, flunked the test.
Here's some examples of malfeasance in case you, like me, flunked the test.
Large-scale plagiarism is clearly wrong, no doubt about it. But in the example section there are parts where several small phrases are used (under 10 or so words) and that's held up as an example of plagiarism. In the cut-and-paste era are standards still really that tight for all levels of academia? It seems that there is a huge danger of false positives if such small snippets are considered plagiarism (and thus violations of the academic code), just because of the risk of subconsciously parroting things read some time before writing.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 11:11 AM on August 5, 2005
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 11:11 AM on August 5, 2005
There's a difference between parroting a concept and repeating something word-for-word. I think most people realize when they're constructing a sentence themselves and when they're simply regurgitating something they read somewhere.
The point, really, is that it's absolutely fine to copy-and-paste phrases from others' work, provided that you put it in quotation marks and cite the original work. Nobody's suggesting you have to come up with 100% original thoughts on everything, but you do have to give credit where it's due, just as you would presumably like others to do were they to build off of your work.
posted by cerebus19 at 11:19 AM on August 5, 2005
The point, really, is that it's absolutely fine to copy-and-paste phrases from others' work, provided that you put it in quotation marks and cite the original work. Nobody's suggesting you have to come up with 100% original thoughts on everything, but you do have to give credit where it's due, just as you would presumably like others to do were they to build off of your work.
posted by cerebus19 at 11:19 AM on August 5, 2005
When I was still in school, I remember times when I had to resort to amazingly convoluted sentences to avoid plagiarism because the original author had phrased a simple idea in the only possible logical way to do so.
posted by piers at 11:21 AM on August 5, 2005
posted by piers at 11:21 AM on August 5, 2005
When I was still in school, I remember times when I had to resort to amazingly convoluted sentences to avoid plagiarism because the original author had phrased a simple idea in the only possible logical way to do so.*
*Piers, Metafilter, August 5, 2005, 2:21 PM EST
Isn't that what quotation marks are for?
posted by Pollomacho at 11:24 AM on August 5, 2005
*Piers, Metafilter, August 5, 2005, 2:21 PM EST
Isn't that what quotation marks are for?
posted by Pollomacho at 11:24 AM on August 5, 2005
There was an entry on this in the Becker-Posner Blog a few months back. Posner wrote an entry, and Becker replied. Of the more interesting comments made by Posner:
The easier it is to detect a wrongful act, the lesser is the punishment required to deter (most of) it; this may be why—to the outrage of students—plagiarism by faculty tends to be punished less severely than plagiarism by students. Moreover, whereas a student plagiarism has absolutely no social value, plagiarism in a published work may have such value.
Becker did not agree:
... the analysis of deterrence implies that punishment should be directly related both to the magnitude of the gain from an illicit activity, and the extent of knowledge about whether it is illicit. On both issues, professors are more culpable than students. A professor who succeeds in plagiarizing typically gains far more from this than a student who plagiarizes in preparing say a term paper. The student may get a higher grade, while the professor helps his chances of getting tenure, promotions, and raises. In addition, professionals know much more than students do about the distinction between plagiarism and simply relying on the contributions of others.
posted by Moral Animal at 11:27 AM on August 5, 2005
The easier it is to detect a wrongful act, the lesser is the punishment required to deter (most of) it; this may be why—to the outrage of students—plagiarism by faculty tends to be punished less severely than plagiarism by students. Moreover, whereas a student plagiarism has absolutely no social value, plagiarism in a published work may have such value.
Becker did not agree:
... the analysis of deterrence implies that punishment should be directly related both to the magnitude of the gain from an illicit activity, and the extent of knowledge about whether it is illicit. On both issues, professors are more culpable than students. A professor who succeeds in plagiarizing typically gains far more from this than a student who plagiarizes in preparing say a term paper. The student may get a higher grade, while the professor helps his chances of getting tenure, promotions, and raises. In addition, professionals know much more than students do about the distinction between plagiarism and simply relying on the contributions of others.
posted by Moral Animal at 11:27 AM on August 5, 2005
or...
As Piers fondly recalls in [http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/44057#1004242], he oftentimes had to rephrase sentences from other authors in odd ways in an effort to escape accusations of plagiarism.
posted by clevershark at 11:27 AM on August 5, 2005
As Piers fondly recalls in [http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/44057#1004242], he oftentimes had to rephrase sentences from other authors in odd ways in an effort to escape accusations of plagiarism.
posted by clevershark at 11:27 AM on August 5, 2005
Some further examples.
Note: some NSFW content. This is a big deal on some blogs, and I'm trying to head off the inevitable useless FPP.
posted by barjo at 11:31 AM on August 5, 2005
Note: some NSFW content. This is a big deal on some blogs, and I'm trying to head off the inevitable useless FPP.
posted by barjo at 11:31 AM on August 5, 2005
This is a strange quiz. Are there any criteria with which to evaluate my score? I got 80, and it still told me to check out their tutorial.
Thanks for the links, DeepFried. You too, Moral Animal.
posted by voltairemodern at 11:34 AM on August 5, 2005
Thanks for the links, DeepFried. You too, Moral Animal.
posted by voltairemodern at 11:34 AM on August 5, 2005
I got 70% and a referal to the tutorial. Large-scale plagiarism is clearly wrong, no doubt about it. But in the example section there are parts where several small phrases are used (under 10 or so words) and that's held up as an example of plagiarism. In the cut-and-paste era are standards still really that tight for all levels of academia? It seems that there is a huge danger of false positives if such small snippets are considered plagiarism (and thus violations of the academic code), just because of the risk of subconsciously parroting things read some time before writing.
posted by elwoodwiles at 11:34 AM on August 5, 2005
posted by elwoodwiles at 11:34 AM on August 5, 2005
Elwood, that made me giggle.
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 11:37 AM on August 5, 2005
posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 11:37 AM on August 5, 2005
I wish I knew what I'd gotten wrong. I got a 90%, and they still told me to check the tutorial.
posted by kalimac at 11:37 AM on August 5, 2005
posted by kalimac at 11:37 AM on August 5, 2005
Good point, pollomacho, but grade school teachers often discourage you from turning in a paper that is essentially all quotes - but if you are doing a very simplistic sort of research paper with straightforward sources like encyclopedias, it's either quotes or try to find another way to say "Sacramento is the capital of California."
posted by piers at 11:45 AM on August 5, 2005
posted by piers at 11:45 AM on August 5, 2005
Try to read a paragraph that quotes and cites the minor details...
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 11:49 AM on August 5, 2005
I went to Sacramento the other day to hear about my test results. "Sacramento is the capital of California." (posted by piers at 11:45 AM PST on August 5) "I got a 90%" and "I wish I knew what I'd gotten wrong." (posted by kalimac at 11:37 AM PST on August 5). This whole tread "ma[kes] me giggle" (posted by DeepFriedTwinkies at 11:37 AM PST on August 5).In other words, it's illegible. Footnotes instead of parentheticals help, but even if you just have the quotes it's distracting to the reader. I think attribution is important, but quotes for small phrases like "Sacramento is the capital of California"? That seems petty and distracting.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 11:49 AM on August 5, 2005
The problem, I suspect, is that students are being asked to write papers that are much too simple to include much original thought/scholarship. If they're learning from textbooks what can you expect?
Another possibility: A student leaves things uncited, passing off learned information not as their own but as general knowledge within the field. There are indeed a number of facts/assumptions within any discipline that need no citation because they are simply generally accepted. It seems that the Indiana site would call this paraphrase-plagiarism. The problem again may be that undergrads are being asked to write essays whose purpose is nothing but showing mastery of basic concepts and facts.
The weird thing about the linked quiz is that eventually you realize that they're not asking you to determine if the paragraph on the right copies information too closely from the paragraph on the left. That seems to be a given in every example (weird). Rather, they're asking you if the information was properly cited.
The solution is to base more undergraduate courses on readings in primary sources. I imagine (accidental) plagiarism is much less a problem in literature classes, where the primary source is always the main text being dealt with. Even in a literary theory course, the purpose should be to grapple with the theoretical texts as though they were primary material. Students shouldn't be learning from textbooks and digests.
By the way, you have to cheat on the test to figure out its criteria. Answer one question at a time, click the button to check your score, and then hit Back and answer another one.
posted by nobody at 11:52 AM on August 5, 2005
Another possibility: A student leaves things uncited, passing off learned information not as their own but as general knowledge within the field. There are indeed a number of facts/assumptions within any discipline that need no citation because they are simply generally accepted. It seems that the Indiana site would call this paraphrase-plagiarism. The problem again may be that undergrads are being asked to write essays whose purpose is nothing but showing mastery of basic concepts and facts.
The weird thing about the linked quiz is that eventually you realize that they're not asking you to determine if the paragraph on the right copies information too closely from the paragraph on the left. That seems to be a given in every example (weird). Rather, they're asking you if the information was properly cited.
The solution is to base more undergraduate courses on readings in primary sources. I imagine (accidental) plagiarism is much less a problem in literature classes, where the primary source is always the main text being dealt with. Even in a literary theory course, the purpose should be to grapple with the theoretical texts as though they were primary material. Students shouldn't be learning from textbooks and digests.
By the way, you have to cheat on the test to figure out its criteria. Answer one question at a time, click the button to check your score, and then hit Back and answer another one.
posted by nobody at 11:52 AM on August 5, 2005
Here are the answers, if you wish to cheat on the plagiarism test.
1: word for word.
2: not.
3: word for word.
4: paraphrasing.
5: word for word.
6: not.
7: word for word.
8: word for word.
9: not.
10: word for word.
posted by mosch at 11:53 AM on August 5, 2005
1: word for word.
2: not.
3: word for word.
4: paraphrasing.
5: word for word.
6: not.
7: word for word.
8: word for word.
9: not.
10: word for word.
posted by mosch at 11:53 AM on August 5, 2005
I was always taught that you didn't need to cite things like "Sacramento is the capital of California" because they are common knowledge.
So you don't need a footnote when you say George Washington was the first president of the US, but you would need one if you draw on someone else's work analyzing why he was elected...
posted by InfidelZombie at 11:59 AM on August 5, 2005
So you don't need a footnote when you say George Washington was the first president of the US, but you would need one if you draw on someone else's work analyzing why he was elected...
posted by InfidelZombie at 11:59 AM on August 5, 2005
And if you get 100% (thanks, mosch), what's your reward? You get to sign something that says:
I understand that there will be no acceptable excuse for plagiarism if it is discovered in my work.
posted by languagehat at 12:03 PM on August 5, 2005
I understand that there will be no acceptable excuse for plagiarism if it is discovered in my work.
posted by languagehat at 12:03 PM on August 5, 2005
I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of paraphrasing plagiarism as it is presented here. The advantage of word-for-word plagiarism is that it is obvious and essentially irrefutable. Paraphrasing plagiarism is entirely a judgment call. Is a particular idea unique enough deserve citation if someone besides the original author uses it? How does one tell the difference between a generally accepted fact that does not demand attribution and one that can be ascribed to a particular author? What degree of textual variation is sufficient to constitute new phrasing?
Answers to these questions are particularly problematic when applied to professional academic work, where an individual might be more likely to accept an idea as 'in the air' than a student being introduced to material for the first time.
posted by Dr_Johnson at 12:08 PM on August 5, 2005
Answers to these questions are particularly problematic when applied to professional academic work, where an individual might be more likely to accept an idea as 'in the air' than a student being introduced to material for the first time.
posted by Dr_Johnson at 12:08 PM on August 5, 2005
"How does one tell the difference between a generally accepted fact that does not demand attribution and one that can be ascribed to a particular author?" above
If you come across an idea in multiple sources than it is safe to think of it as a generally accepted claim that does not need to be cited. If you only see the idea in a single source, you must cite it. This does place a burden on the author to go and look for more sources than he might prefer to, but that is the cost of avoiding intellectual dishonesty.
To your second question, I think that striving for textual variation is a is a bit off the mark. You should be striving to have a good idea. (It doesn't have to be wholly unique. For example, you could add to an existing theory.) If you are contributing something to the discussion than you won't have to worry about textual variation. (Which is really only a problem if you are just parroting someone.)
Toward the general thread (or one strand of it). I've taught more than a few undergrads. Even when we ask for a two-page paper we do not expect it to be simplistic or shallow. You do not need much more than time and a willingness to work on an idea/problem/topic to have a good paper. If a student does the work they are supposed to there is essentially no chance of a false positive and no need to try to simply regurgitate class ntoes or text book passages.
posted by oddman at 12:41 PM on August 5, 2005
If you come across an idea in multiple sources than it is safe to think of it as a generally accepted claim that does not need to be cited. If you only see the idea in a single source, you must cite it. This does place a burden on the author to go and look for more sources than he might prefer to, but that is the cost of avoiding intellectual dishonesty.
To your second question, I think that striving for textual variation is a is a bit off the mark. You should be striving to have a good idea. (It doesn't have to be wholly unique. For example, you could add to an existing theory.) If you are contributing something to the discussion than you won't have to worry about textual variation. (Which is really only a problem if you are just parroting someone.)
Toward the general thread (or one strand of it). I've taught more than a few undergrads. Even when we ask for a two-page paper we do not expect it to be simplistic or shallow. You do not need much more than time and a willingness to work on an idea/problem/topic to have a good paper. If a student does the work they are supposed to there is essentially no chance of a false positive and no need to try to simply regurgitate class ntoes or text book passages.
posted by oddman at 12:41 PM on August 5, 2005
I got onlhy to the second example, the origian, which inclujded "we argue that rapid ..." and then recalled that MarkTwain once stated that the royal we was to be used only by kings or people with a tapeworm.
posted by Postroad at 12:43 PM on August 5, 2005
posted by Postroad at 12:43 PM on August 5, 2005
It's true, you're never alone if you have a tapeworm.
posted by clevershark at 12:57 PM on August 5, 2005
posted by clevershark at 12:57 PM on August 5, 2005
How can you have a plagiarism test where you have one source and one or two sentences. That's missing the whole point.
Any real paper will be informed by multiple sources; the merit of the entirely researched paper (i.e. one in which you contribute no original ideas or theories) lies in the synthesis and interpretation of the accumulated data on the subject.
The true test for plagiarism in such cases is hardly how closely your copy mimics someone else's in a particular paragraph, but whether you have done sufficient research on the topic that you are not simply presenting somone elses argument as your own.
You just can't tell this from 1-2 sentence excerpts.
Incidently, no amount of rephrasal can prevent plagiarism if you're simply presenting one person's argument.
posted by patnasty at 1:14 PM on August 5, 2005
Any real paper will be informed by multiple sources; the merit of the entirely researched paper (i.e. one in which you contribute no original ideas or theories) lies in the synthesis and interpretation of the accumulated data on the subject.
The true test for plagiarism in such cases is hardly how closely your copy mimics someone else's in a particular paragraph, but whether you have done sufficient research on the topic that you are not simply presenting somone elses argument as your own.
You just can't tell this from 1-2 sentence excerpts.
Incidently, no amount of rephrasal can prevent plagiarism if you're simply presenting one person's argument.
posted by patnasty at 1:14 PM on August 5, 2005
If you only see the idea in a single source, you must cite it. This does place a burden on the author to go and look for more sources than he might prefer to, but that is the cost of avoiding intellectual dishonesty.
Ah, but in academic work there lies the potential for problems. It is not necessarily an issue of intellectual honesty, it is an issue of managing multiple sources with multiple novel interpretations simultanously. Many accused of plagiariarism within academic circles have no malicious intent.
If you come across an idea in multiple sources than it is safe to think of it as a generally accepted claim that does not need to be cited.
I'm not sure I would accept this as a generally applicable rule. One might find an argument presented by a particular school of thought (say for instance, the Frankfurt School), in which case while it failing to cite might not technically constitute plagiarism, but it would certainly indicate questionable judgment.
I certainly am not suggesting one shoot for variation as a writing goal- I am talking as an educator about how one might identify paraphrasing plagiarism, not how one might sneak past the rule. I have had to deal with such issues on a number of occasions teaching undergraduates, who do not see paraphrasing without attribution as a problem at all.
posted by Dr_Johnson at 1:18 PM on August 5, 2005
Ah, but in academic work there lies the potential for problems. It is not necessarily an issue of intellectual honesty, it is an issue of managing multiple sources with multiple novel interpretations simultanously. Many accused of plagiariarism within academic circles have no malicious intent.
If you come across an idea in multiple sources than it is safe to think of it as a generally accepted claim that does not need to be cited.
I'm not sure I would accept this as a generally applicable rule. One might find an argument presented by a particular school of thought (say for instance, the Frankfurt School), in which case while it failing to cite might not technically constitute plagiarism, but it would certainly indicate questionable judgment.
I certainly am not suggesting one shoot for variation as a writing goal- I am talking as an educator about how one might identify paraphrasing plagiarism, not how one might sneak past the rule. I have had to deal with such issues on a number of occasions teaching undergraduates, who do not see paraphrasing without attribution as a problem at all.
posted by Dr_Johnson at 1:18 PM on August 5, 2005
then recalled that MarkTwain once stated that the royal we was to be used only by kings or people with a tapeworm.
According to WikiQuote, it's "Only presidents, editors and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'."
posted by sbutler at 1:27 PM on August 5, 2005
According to WikiQuote, it's "Only presidents, editors and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial 'we'."
posted by sbutler at 1:27 PM on August 5, 2005
Ok, maybe I'm weird, but this quiz itself was annoying and slightly confusing. When the word "Refrences" appears at the bottom of entries in column 1, it really means that "This refrence identifies the material above," But when "Refrences" appears at the bottom of entries in column 2, it is supposed to point you to a source in the first column. Just an annoyance, but still. Ick.
posted by washburn at 2:06 PM on August 5, 2005
posted by washburn at 2:06 PM on August 5, 2005
I have serious issues with this quiz. I agree that there's not enough data here for us to go on. This quiz is trying to put the fear of God into students. But we actually encourage students to rehash what they've read; how surprised can we be that they read over the texts we give them and then burp it back out at us when we ask for it? If the question posed by the instructor can be copy/paste answered out of the textbook, what on earth are we expecting to get back from students?
If we take this all-encompassing definition of plagiarism to its logical conclusion, I need to cite every single word I use, because I didn't come up with the English language. I didn't come up with the term "come up", either. Or "logical conclusion". Creativity always builds on the past.
I understand that this quiz is meant to help students produce good work rather than lame, plagiarized work, but it doesn't actually teach any skills. It would be more helpful to talk about how to incorporate other people's ideas into your own work rather than getting students to compare one paragraph with another, similar paragraph. Getting students to bend over backwards to rephrase a phrase less than 10 words long isn't teaching them to build on what's come before. It's just getting them mired in the semantics.
posted by Hildegarde at 3:02 PM on August 5, 2005
If we take this all-encompassing definition of plagiarism to its logical conclusion, I need to cite every single word I use, because I didn't come up with the English language. I didn't come up with the term "come up", either. Or "logical conclusion". Creativity always builds on the past.
I understand that this quiz is meant to help students produce good work rather than lame, plagiarized work, but it doesn't actually teach any skills. It would be more helpful to talk about how to incorporate other people's ideas into your own work rather than getting students to compare one paragraph with another, similar paragraph. Getting students to bend over backwards to rephrase a phrase less than 10 words long isn't teaching them to build on what's come before. It's just getting them mired in the semantics.
posted by Hildegarde at 3:02 PM on August 5, 2005
Well put. Someone explain to me how example 1 is "word for word" when the words are, in fact, different. (The set is not identical; neither is the order.)
It would be much more useful, in my opinion, if they had given examples of submissions that were not plagiarism.
posted by mleonard at 3:46 PM on August 5, 2005
It would be much more useful, in my opinion, if they had given examples of submissions that were not plagiarism.
posted by mleonard at 3:46 PM on August 5, 2005
I have serious issues with this quiz. I agree that there's not enough data here for us to go on. This quiz is trying to put the fear of God into students. But we actually encourage students to rehash what they've read; how surprised can we be that they read over the texts we give them and then burp it back out at us when we ask for it? If the question posed by the instructor can be copy/paste answered out of the textbook, what on earth are we expecting to get back from students?
That's exactly right.
posted by gd779 at 3:59 PM on August 5, 2005
That's exactly right.
posted by gd779 at 3:59 PM on August 5, 2005
tddl: I think attribution is important, but quotes for small phrases like "Sacramento is the capital of California"? That seems petty and distracting.
Ahem. The capital of California falls under "common knowledge." Which is one of those areas that concern me about trying to nail down this definition. Common knowledge to one audience may not be common knowledge to another.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:58 PM on August 5, 2005
Ahem. The capital of California falls under "common knowledge." Which is one of those areas that concern me about trying to nail down this definition. Common knowledge to one audience may not be common knowledge to another.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 4:58 PM on August 5, 2005
Kids has been actively learning plagiarism in the middle school in my town this year. They had to turn in reports on articles, along with a copy of the article. The way my daughter does is to do straight cut-andpaste, with the goal of getting the same content while reducing the length by half, with one sentence expressing her personal opinion in the end. She can almost do it in automatic mode, barely understanding the contents.
She actively resisted my suggestions to try to read the article, understand it, set it aside and summarize it in her own words. She also resisted my suggestions to look for other information on the same topic. Why? Because that's much more work and, surprisingly (in my opinion), she gets good grades already with what she does. She has also claimed that she "is not supposed" to do it that way, although I find that very hard to believe. She says that "everybody" in her class does it using cut-and-paste...
posted by bikerdriver at 6:23 PM on August 5, 2005
She actively resisted my suggestions to try to read the article, understand it, set it aside and summarize it in her own words. She also resisted my suggestions to look for other information on the same topic. Why? Because that's much more work and, surprisingly (in my opinion), she gets good grades already with what she does. She has also claimed that she "is not supposed" to do it that way, although I find that very hard to believe. She says that "everybody" in her class does it using cut-and-paste...
posted by bikerdriver at 6:23 PM on August 5, 2005
I got 60% on that quiz. And grr, it reminds me of the major snafu that my classmates and I went through a few weeks ago.
For one of our classes, we were to pick a new advancement in communications technology and write a paper relating it to a communications theory. None of the material needed for this class (esp. the theories) were actually taught to us, and the college wanted mainly print material (websites and other media only as a last resort), so we had to source the information and learn it ourselves. We were given a booklist of materials related to communications theory, and we we told that we should use at least one of those books for the paper.
I chose to write about blogs. This is in Malaysia, where there aren't that many (if any even) print sources about blogs. Even the books prescribed to us were hard to find in the libraries (our syllabus comes from an affiliated college in Australia). I did manage to find a few things, and I also had newspaper and magazine articles about blogging, as well as a couple of web sources.
Most of the paper was based on my personal experiences and observations about blogging. The sources didn't really have much information pertinent to my paper, only background information; the actual analysis and examples were provided from what I had personally seen and experienced. I wrote about how events like the tsunami and the war on Iraq brought people together via blogs, how blogs encourage freedom of information and expression (one of the theories I used), and so on. This was not from a printed source, and since I didn't know how to reference "Personal Experiences", I left it alone.
We were given our grades for the paper (the second of two - we didn't have exams for that subject). Most of us did well, enough to at least get Bs if not As. There were 3 blacklisted for plagiarism (we didn't know their names but it was noted next to their Student ID) and one or two that didn't hand it in, but generally we were OK.
A week or two before the next semester of college started, a whole group of us received an email from our lecturer saying that after moderation with the Australian uni, we received an X grade (supplementary work needed) and that to pass (and get PX, equivalent to a C-) we had to rewrite the essay with proper referencing. There were 59 of us affected, and most of them were people at the top of the class.
Everyone was really upset, since it was holiday season and this was just too soon to the new semester. I was panicking because in a few days time I was leaving for a study abroad program and I had no time to look up new print references and rewrite the whole thing. I emailed my lecturer asking what's up, since I knew I did nothing wrong and that our papers were graded already so there shouldn't be a reason for such a drastic change.
She told me that from pages 2-5, I didn't reference anyone even though I was "paraphrasing" (Lecturer, S. 2005). And that was apparently "Too risky". Well, I was definitely NOT paraphrasing, since those were my ideas. But instead of proving any possible plagiarism - I was willing to do a viva and defend my paper in person - they decided to fail me, and then demand additional work in a week or two so that I could barely pass.
This was frustrating. All these people, top students especially, Xed for plagiarism? Even AFTER we had received our grades? And there was NO PROOF of any possible plagiarism? Heck, I know people who copied word-for-word from ReligiousTolerance.org (I read his paper, and it was obvious; also, he admitted it) and they got off fine. The moderators were even lenient with other subjects this time, passing people who were borderline. What on Earth happened here?
I just added two more references, wherever I could possibly slot one in, and sent it back to her just before I left on my trip. Haven't heard anything from her since.
My parents read the paper and said that they must have thought that a first-year student can't have possibly come up with such ideas on her own. I don't know if they're just saying that because I'm their daughter, but hey.
I didn't plagiarise and the burden of the proof shouldn't fall on me since I'm not the one making the accusation. But what the hell, really. It's so fishy, all of this.
posted by divabat at 6:39 PM on August 5, 2005
For one of our classes, we were to pick a new advancement in communications technology and write a paper relating it to a communications theory. None of the material needed for this class (esp. the theories) were actually taught to us, and the college wanted mainly print material (websites and other media only as a last resort), so we had to source the information and learn it ourselves. We were given a booklist of materials related to communications theory, and we we told that we should use at least one of those books for the paper.
I chose to write about blogs. This is in Malaysia, where there aren't that many (if any even) print sources about blogs. Even the books prescribed to us were hard to find in the libraries (our syllabus comes from an affiliated college in Australia). I did manage to find a few things, and I also had newspaper and magazine articles about blogging, as well as a couple of web sources.
Most of the paper was based on my personal experiences and observations about blogging. The sources didn't really have much information pertinent to my paper, only background information; the actual analysis and examples were provided from what I had personally seen and experienced. I wrote about how events like the tsunami and the war on Iraq brought people together via blogs, how blogs encourage freedom of information and expression (one of the theories I used), and so on. This was not from a printed source, and since I didn't know how to reference "Personal Experiences", I left it alone.
We were given our grades for the paper (the second of two - we didn't have exams for that subject). Most of us did well, enough to at least get Bs if not As. There were 3 blacklisted for plagiarism (we didn't know their names but it was noted next to their Student ID) and one or two that didn't hand it in, but generally we were OK.
A week or two before the next semester of college started, a whole group of us received an email from our lecturer saying that after moderation with the Australian uni, we received an X grade (supplementary work needed) and that to pass (and get PX, equivalent to a C-) we had to rewrite the essay with proper referencing. There were 59 of us affected, and most of them were people at the top of the class.
Everyone was really upset, since it was holiday season and this was just too soon to the new semester. I was panicking because in a few days time I was leaving for a study abroad program and I had no time to look up new print references and rewrite the whole thing. I emailed my lecturer asking what's up, since I knew I did nothing wrong and that our papers were graded already so there shouldn't be a reason for such a drastic change.
She told me that from pages 2-5, I didn't reference anyone even though I was "paraphrasing" (Lecturer, S. 2005). And that was apparently "Too risky". Well, I was definitely NOT paraphrasing, since those were my ideas. But instead of proving any possible plagiarism - I was willing to do a viva and defend my paper in person - they decided to fail me, and then demand additional work in a week or two so that I could barely pass.
This was frustrating. All these people, top students especially, Xed for plagiarism? Even AFTER we had received our grades? And there was NO PROOF of any possible plagiarism? Heck, I know people who copied word-for-word from ReligiousTolerance.org (I read his paper, and it was obvious; also, he admitted it) and they got off fine. The moderators were even lenient with other subjects this time, passing people who were borderline. What on Earth happened here?
I just added two more references, wherever I could possibly slot one in, and sent it back to her just before I left on my trip. Haven't heard anything from her since.
My parents read the paper and said that they must have thought that a first-year student can't have possibly come up with such ideas on her own. I don't know if they're just saying that because I'm their daughter, but hey.
I didn't plagiarise and the burden of the proof shouldn't fall on me since I'm not the one making the accusation. But what the hell, really. It's so fishy, all of this.
posted by divabat at 6:39 PM on August 5, 2005
divabat - i'd suggest you go to a school where original thought is tolerated ... and, yes, the burden of proof should be on those accusing, not you
posted by pyramid termite at 8:30 PM on August 5, 2005
posted by pyramid termite at 8:30 PM on August 5, 2005
pyramid termite - know of any good ones in Malaysia? The college I was referring to was one of the good ones in the country for creativity and original thought, and our program is partnered with a respected Australian university, so this really shocked me.
posted by divabat at 9:47 PM on August 5, 2005
posted by divabat at 9:47 PM on August 5, 2005
#9 might not be plagiarism, but it's still a horrible example of academic writing. Are they actually saying you should be writing run-on sentences? It's academia. The bar for good writing is not as high as...say... Dickens or Hemingway.
posted by jonp72 at 12:46 AM on August 6, 2005
posted by jonp72 at 12:46 AM on August 6, 2005
divabat: Go higher up the food chain. See if the department head would like to hear what you have to say- and if not, go higher.
posted by perianwyr at 1:58 PM on August 6, 2005
posted by perianwyr at 1:58 PM on August 6, 2005
perianwyr: I'm unfortunately far far away from home at the moment - I'm on my study abroad trip and won't be back for half a year.
My parents say they'd fight for me (they'd even allow me to start over somewhere else if I wish) but eh...seems like a lost cause. I don't know which food chain to tackle - Malaysian Uni or Australian Uni.
Feh.
posted by divabat at 8:41 PM on August 6, 2005
My parents say they'd fight for me (they'd even allow me to start over somewhere else if I wish) but eh...seems like a lost cause. I don't know which food chain to tackle - Malaysian Uni or Australian Uni.
Feh.
posted by divabat at 8:41 PM on August 6, 2005
divabat: Something similar happened to my sister. "Freshmen can't write that well," the prof told her. "Therefore you stole it and therefore you get an F."
"By the end of the semester," my sister told the prof, "you will give that paper the grade it deserves and you will apologize to me."
To her credit, the prof did do both.
posted by kindall at 12:10 AM on August 7, 2005
"By the end of the semester," my sister told the prof, "you will give that paper the grade it deserves and you will apologize to me."
To her credit, the prof did do both.
posted by kindall at 12:10 AM on August 7, 2005
I am extremely uncomfortable with the idea of paraphrasing plagiarism as it is presented here. The advantage of word-for-word plagiarism is that it is obvious and essentially irrefutable. Paraphrasing plagiarism is entirely a judgment call. Is a particular idea unique enough deserve citation if someone besides the original author uses it? How does one tell the difference between a generally accepted fact that does not demand attribution and one that can be ascribed to a particular author? What degree of textual variation is sufficient to constitute new phrasing?
I think most paraphrasing plagiarism isn't about common knowledge vs. unique fact. For example, if I wrote the following:
Paraphrasing plagiarism as they present it makes me a little sqeamish. Word-for-word plagiarism is clear cut and hard to dispute. Spotting paraphrasing plagiarism requires greater use of personal discretion. If you take an idea from someone else, how unique does it have to be before it requires citation? How do you tell if a fact is that should be cited and one that does not require citation? How much do you have to change the text to avoid paraphrasing citation?
I would consider that plagiarism even if it were cited. I think it's very clear that I've just borrowed your writing, sentence for sentence and changed the words. I could not have written that paragraph without constant back and forth reference to your paragraph. So the problem isn't the taking of your idea, it's the taking of your expression of your idea.
In order to avoid plagiarism I need to have my own expression of your idea. Something close to what would plausibly be my explantion of if a week later someone asked me a week I hadn't spent with your paragraph on a cue card, repeatedly mumbling it to myself in the hopes of committing the content to memory and someone said "What did Dr. Johnson think".
So a non plagiarized version would be something like: "He didn't like the idea of calling out students for being unable to make judgement calls about what was common knowledge, and he felt that the quiz's examples of paraphrasing plagiarism seemed to require that." and then cite it. Yes, a run on sentence, but not a plagiarized one .
As to the people suggesting you can just throw quotes around things, that's a sure way to get a low grade from me. I tell my students that in general you should limit your use of quotes to instances in which you intend to comment on the quote itself (i.e. the language, the framing of the argument, the presentation etc.), rather than the content of the quote. If you're including material for the content, you can write about the content yourself.
posted by duck at 7:21 AM on August 7, 2005
I think most paraphrasing plagiarism isn't about common knowledge vs. unique fact. For example, if I wrote the following:
Paraphrasing plagiarism as they present it makes me a little sqeamish. Word-for-word plagiarism is clear cut and hard to dispute. Spotting paraphrasing plagiarism requires greater use of personal discretion. If you take an idea from someone else, how unique does it have to be before it requires citation? How do you tell if a fact is that should be cited and one that does not require citation? How much do you have to change the text to avoid paraphrasing citation?
I would consider that plagiarism even if it were cited. I think it's very clear that I've just borrowed your writing, sentence for sentence and changed the words. I could not have written that paragraph without constant back and forth reference to your paragraph. So the problem isn't the taking of your idea, it's the taking of your expression of your idea.
In order to avoid plagiarism I need to have my own expression of your idea. Something close to what would plausibly be my explantion of if a week later someone asked me a week I hadn't spent with your paragraph on a cue card, repeatedly mumbling it to myself in the hopes of committing the content to memory and someone said "What did Dr. Johnson think".
So a non plagiarized version would be something like: "He didn't like the idea of calling out students for being unable to make judgement calls about what was common knowledge, and he felt that the quiz's examples of paraphrasing plagiarism seemed to require that." and then cite it. Yes, a run on sentence, but not a plagiarized one .
As to the people suggesting you can just throw quotes around things, that's a sure way to get a low grade from me. I tell my students that in general you should limit your use of quotes to instances in which you intend to comment on the quote itself (i.e. the language, the framing of the argument, the presentation etc.), rather than the content of the quote. If you're including material for the content, you can write about the content yourself.
posted by duck at 7:21 AM on August 7, 2005
My biggest problem has been trying to get students to understand you really do have to cite facts and ideas, even the ones that aren't in quotes.
To be honest - it does them a disservice not to, because in a well cited paper, I know that the sentances which are not cited are their own ideas. If they don't cite well, I have to assume none of it is original. So my message to students would be to cit as much as possible. Then your own ideas stick out.
divabat - that is unfortunate about your paper. You can cite the blogs themselves as examples. A good paper should present both your ideas and examples (cited to the blogs). I've written English papers with no secondary sources, only my own ideas, and that's what I did.
posted by jb at 10:46 PM on August 13, 2005
To be honest - it does them a disservice not to, because in a well cited paper, I know that the sentances which are not cited are their own ideas. If they don't cite well, I have to assume none of it is original. So my message to students would be to cit as much as possible. Then your own ideas stick out.
divabat - that is unfortunate about your paper. You can cite the blogs themselves as examples. A good paper should present both your ideas and examples (cited to the blogs). I've written English papers with no secondary sources, only my own ideas, and that's what I did.
posted by jb at 10:46 PM on August 13, 2005
Sorry - that would be "even the ones that have rewritten". Some think you only cite quotes, and just throw the references for the rest at the end.
posted by jb at 10:48 PM on August 13, 2005
posted by jb at 10:48 PM on August 13, 2005
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posted by rw at 11:10 AM on August 5, 2005