How to avoid plagiarism

How to avoid plagiarism Patricia E. Kirkwood University of Arkansas University Libraries 2007 Last updated 8/26/2007 Disclaimer • I am not a lawyer! • I am not an excellent or expert writer! • The purpose of this presentation is – To define plagiarism. – Show when to provide attribution. – Discuss how copyright and plagiarism differ. – Explain how to avoid copyright issues in the electronic age. Academic Regulations University of Arkansas “Academic dishonesty involves…. 10. Plagiarizing, that is, the offering as one’s own work the words, ideas, or arguments of another person without appropriate attribution by quotation, reference or footnote. Plagiarism occurs both when the words of another (in print, electronic, or any other medium) are reproduced without acknowledgement or when the ideas or arguments of another are paraphrased in such a way as to lead the reader to believe that they originated with the writer. It is the responsibility of all University students to understand the methods of proper attribution and to apply those principles in all materials submitted.” http://catalogofstudies.uark.edu/current/studies/734.htm, University of Arkansas, retrieved 10/30/06 On our campus • Academic Regulations http://catalogofstudies.uark.edu/ – Graduate catalog • Research Misconduct Policies and Procedures -- page 28 • Academic Honesty Policy for Graduate Students -- page 35. • Statement that theses and dissertations may be checked -- page 34. – Undergraduate catalog • An act of academic dishonest under Academic Honesty -- page 35 • Library resources – Citation practices http://libinfo.uark.edu/reference/citingyoursources.asp – Citing electronic resources http://libinfo.uark.edu/eresources/handoutalleng.asp Tools to detect plagiarism Academic Use Policies for Electronic Plagiarism Prevention Services University of Arkansas Last updated: August 15, 2007 “The University of Arkansas Graduate School has purchased a Graduate School license for a web-based plagiarism prevention service, Turnitin®, which may be used by graduate students or their instructors to compare the text of writing assignments to an extensive electronic database. An additional plagiarism prevention tool, SafeAssign®, will soon be available as an add-on module to Blackboard and WebCT web-based learning environments and will be available in courses, both graduate and undergraduate, which utilize these products.” http://www.uark.edu/depts/gradinfo/files/PlagiarismPreventionToolUsePolicies.pdf Information you should know. • “Turnitin (but not SafeAssign) retains student papers for later comparison but does not release their content without permission of the person who submitted the paper. Instructors should refer any release requests from Turnitin to the student who wrote the paper and not release the paper without the student's permission.” http://www.uark.edu/depts/gradinfo/files/PlagiarismPreventionToolUsePolicies.pdf Definition “Scholarly authors generously acknowledge their debts to predecessors by carefully giving credit to each source. Whenever you draw on another’s work, you must specify what you borrowed whether facts, opinions, or quotations and where you borrowed it from. Using another person’s ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source constitutes plagiarism. . . .In short, to plagiarize is to give the impression that you wrote or thought something that you in fact borrowed from someone, and to do so is a violation of professional ethics.” (Joseph Gibaldi, MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing. 2nd. ed, New York: MLA, 1998: 151). Emphasis added. Ethics vs. legal • Plagiarism is an ethical issue – Stealing others ideas or writing – Not punishable by law – Measured against organizational standards • Copyright is a legal issue – If an important amount is copied – Doesn’t have to be reused – Civil penalties can apply Copyright is NOT just about published words •Creative expressions of an idea – Pictures – Art – Performances – Writings Copyright issues in academia • Fair use – How much • Is it “the part” that makes the item unique? – How used • Classroom distribution vs. personal research and reading – How often • Spur of the moment ok – year after year is not. Avoid copyright issues • Only download or copy articles you are using for current personal research or education needs. • Never download or copy the whole issue of a journal. • DO NOT use robotic means to download articles from copyrighted materials. • Assume anything on the internet IS copyrighted unless it states otherwise. Avoid Plagiarism • Cite things properly – Quotation marks unless your own words – Footnotes or works cited page • Use your OWN words • When in doubt attribute Direct quote • Use their words • Quotation marks • Footnote or work cited “An information accident is a wonderful learning opportunity” (1) 1. Kirkwood, Patricia E., in a private conversation, 2006 Key phrases • • • • Use within your sentence Add quotations Footnote or work cited Not needed for known technical terms Students are more ready to learn about information resources after their first “information accident”(1). 1. Kirkwood, Patricia E., in a private conversation, 2006 Paraphrase • • • • Still their idea Do not put in quotations State you are paraphrasing Footnote or work cited still needed According to Kirkwood, students will pay more attention when they have made a mistake using information. (1) 1. Kirkwood, Patricia E., in a private conversation, 2006 Self plagiarism • According to the ACM governing body .. “In fact, the ACM Copyright Policy is rather liberal in granting authors the right to reuse any portion of their ACM copyrighted works in other works of their own. However, what is not ethical is the practice of reusing one’s own work in a way that portrays it as new when, in fact, it is not. Thus, reusing significant portions of a previously published work in another work of your own is acceptable, provided you cite the previous work and include a disclaimer stating a portion of the current work was previously published.” Plagiarism on the Rise by Ronald F. Boisvert and Mary Jane Irwin Co-Chairs, ACM Publications Board in COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM June 2006/Vol. 49, No. 6 23 emphasis added. Technical terms, data • Technical writing is a bit more difficult. • Known technical terms do not need quotation marks • Data from other sources must be attributed but may not need to be quoted “If you construct a figure or a table from data that were previously published as narrative text, you do not need permission, but you should reference the source of the data (e.g. “Data are from ref 7.”) (1) Dodd, Janet S., editor, The ACS style guide: A manual for authors and editors, 2nd edition, American Chemical Society, Washington DC, 1997. Cite where you got the information – and the original source if necessary. Taken from: Perry, Robert H., Perry’s Chemical Engineering Handbook, 7th Edition, McGraw Hill, New York, 1997, p.14-32 Structures, diagrams and biological pictures Copyright © 2007 American Chemical Society The First Example of a Diastereoselective Thio-Ugi Reaction: A New Synthetic Approach to Chiral Imidazole Derivatives Anton V. Gulevich, Elizabeth S. Balenkova, and Valentine G. Nenajdenko Web Release Date: 13-Sep-2007; (Article) DOI: 10.1021/jo071030o Some examples • Taken from: A Technique for Detecting Plagiarism in Computer Code Charlie Daly and Jane Horgan The Computer Journal 2005 48(6):662-666; doi:10.1093/comjnl/bxh139 Oxford University Journals oxfordjournals.org, retrieved 10/30/2006 Quoted term Standard term Paraphrase How would you avoid plagiarism? According to Daly and Horgan, students that copied got lower scores on the examination. (1) Another example Direct quote Images Even if you only use a picture, somewhere there should be an attribution! Falkirk Wheel Side 2004 Sean Mack http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:FalkirkWheelSide_2004_SeanMcClean_%28jha%29.jpg Accessed: Jan 30, 2007 Schematics and diagrams Challen, Bernard; Baranescu, Rodica (1999). Diesel Engine Reference Book (2nd Edition). (pp. 226). Elsevier. Online version available at: http://www.knovel.com/knovel2/Toc.jsp?BookID=672&VerticalID=0 Style vs. intent • Better to cite badly without the proper style than to plagiarize. • If you can not identify the author, a title, a publishing organization, and a publication date, find a better resource. • But if you still use it – it is still plagiarism if you do not cite it. Central to the federal policy is the standardized definition for research misconduct, which is the "fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in processing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting results." The policy also requires that, for the action in question to be found to be misconduct, it must be a significant departure from normal activities of the local research community, be done intentionally, and be supported by sufficient evidence. Chemical & Engineering News, Susan R. Morrissey – – – – – November 6, 2006 Volume 84, Number 45 pp. 18-22 http://0-pubs.acs.org.library.uark.edu/isubscribe/journals/cen/84/i45/html/8445gov1.html Accessed 1/30/2007 And Provost Smith states: “I know a chief academic officer of a major research university who had a sobering experience with plagiarized material. The incident involved an interview of a candidate for department head in a technologically oriented field. While reading a prospectus prepared by the candidate, the following expressions were noted: “The key is to be a light not a judge; a model, not a critic.” Googling these phrases led to a detection of their expression in Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Successful People: Powerful Lessons in Successful Change (1989). While speaking with the candidate about how he had prepared for his first interview as department head, the candidate was asked about the origin of the above-noted thoughts. His response: “Oh, I guess I should have put them in quotes.” Needless to say, the chief academic officer informed the search committee chair immediately.” All things academic, Volume 8, Issue 1; March 2007 http://libinfo.uark.edu/ata/v8no1/plagiarism.asp