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Define Plagiarism for Me
Posted by Unknown
on
Monday, October 20, 2008
We begin in school learning to copy word for word what is in the text book. Remember how we wrote out dictionary definitions? What about rewriting a Shakespeare soliloquy. And of course these days, learning to copy and paste something from the Internet is just survival.
If you want to know what plagiarism is, just imagine that you are the victim. How would you feel if someone read something that was your writing, or idea and then claimed it as their own, after you worked hard? Usually, the victim test is the best test to determine if something is plagiarism.
I recommend two tutorials that are produced by universities. It is at the college level that a violation can get you kicked out of school, so the schools are doing their best to educate the students before the big mistake.Vaughn Memorial Library Tutorial on Plagiarism
Rutgers University Video on Plagiarism
So when is it OK to copy and when is it not? I think the question “when” refers to your age. It is fine to copy words up until you are old enough to understand that someone else wrote them. When that age is seems to vary from school to school. But certainly by the middle school years, you can see that a book has an author and it wasn’t YOU.
Crediting the source suddenly becomes this enormous burden using the proper formatting like commas, semicolons, and alphabetizing that would make any one’s head spin. And there are so many styles too: MLA, APA, Chicago and many more. No wonder students still opt to cut and paste – it is just easier. But that doesn’t make it right.
MS Word 2007 makes the whole process easier. Students can create a database of all their sources by simply
filling in a form for each book, magazine or electronic source. MS Word then stores the data. From that point, it is easy to create footnotes, citations within the body of the document and even a Works Cited page without placing a single comma.
If you don’t have the latest MS Office Suite, have no fear. Many websites offer citations ready made. Just look for a button that says CITE. Or, use a citation generator online. There are many. Most are free, some require a registration like NoodleTools (I recommend this one.) Either way, the dread of placing the page number before the title is just not there. Before entering high school, a student should become familiar with whatever tools they plan to use for citations. No one wants to learn this the night the term paper is due. Believe me!
NoodleTools
Son of Citation Machine
EasyBib
|
If you want to know what plagiarism is, just imagine that you are the victim. How would you feel if someone read something that was your writing, or idea and then claimed it as their own, after you worked hard? Usually, the victim test is the best test to determine if something is plagiarism.
I recommend two tutorials that are produced by universities. It is at the college level that a violation can get you kicked out of school, so the schools are doing their best to educate the students before the big mistake.Vaughn Memorial Library Tutorial on Plagiarism
Rutgers University Video on Plagiarism
So when is it OK to copy and when is it not? I think the question “when” refers to your age. It is fine to copy words up until you are old enough to understand that someone else wrote them. When that age is seems to vary from school to school. But certainly by the middle school years, you can see that a book has an author and it wasn’t YOU.
Crediting the source suddenly becomes this enormous burden using the proper formatting like commas, semicolons, and alphabetizing that would make any one’s head spin. And there are so many styles too: MLA, APA, Chicago and many more. No wonder students still opt to cut and paste – it is just easier. But that doesn’t make it right.
MS Word 2007 makes the whole process easier. Students can create a database of all their sources by simply
filling in a form for each book, magazine or electronic source. MS Word then stores the data. From that point, it is easy to create footnotes, citations within the body of the document and even a Works Cited page without placing a single comma.
If you don’t have the latest MS Office Suite, have no fear. Many websites offer citations ready made. Just look for a button that says CITE. Or, use a citation generator online. There are many. Most are free, some require a registration like NoodleTools (I recommend this one.) Either way, the dread of placing the page number before the title is just not there. Before entering high school, a student should become familiar with whatever tools they plan to use for citations. No one wants to learn this the night the term paper is due. Believe me!
NoodleTools
Son of Citation Machine
EasyBib
|
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