Plagiarism—A literature thief!

What is Plagiarism?

• Plagiarize: – to take and use as one’s own the thoughts, writings,

or inventions of another. (Oxford English Dictionary)– to use another person's idea or a part of their work

and pretend that it is your own (Cambridge Dictionary)

• Plagiarism: the act of plagiarizing, i.e., taking someone's words or ideas as if they were your own.

Why is it Important?

• To obey copyright.• To honor intellectual property. • To give credits to people.• To establish your own thoughts.• To respect academic honesty.

What counts as other people's ideas?

• All words are quoted directly from another source.

• All ideas are paraphrased from a source. • All ideas are borrowed from another source:

statistics, graphs, charts. • All ideas or materials are taken from the

Internet.

What doesn’t count?

• Common knowledge: facts that can be found in numerous places and are likely to be known by a lot of people.– George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United

States.• Terms that are commonly shared by people in that

field, such as the “communicative language teaching" for educators, or the term “realism" for literature experts.

Common types of Plagiarism

• Paraphrasing Wording• Original Source:

Some of Dickinson’s most powerful poems express her firmly held conviction that life cannot be fully comprehended without an understanding of death.

• Revised: Emily Dickinson firmly believed that we cannot fully comprehend life unless we also understand death.

• Plagiarism!! You borrowed another’s wording without acknowledgment, even though you changed its form.

• Repeating Wording• Original Source:

The US has only lost approximately 30 percent of its original forest area, most of this in the nineteenth century. The loss has not been higher mainly because population pressure has never been as great there as in Europe.

• Revised: Despite the outcry from environmentalist groups like Earth First! and the Sierra Club, it is important to note that the US has only lost approximately 30 percent of its original forest area, most of this in the nineteenth century. The loss has not been higher mainly because population pressure has never been as great here as in Europe.

• Taking a Particularly Apt Phrase• Original Source:

Everyone uses the word language and everybody these days talks about culture ... “Languaculture” is a reminder, I hope, of the necessary connection between its two parts.

• Revised: At the intersection of language and culture lies a concept that we might call “languaculture.”

• Plagiarism!! You borrowed without acknowledgment a term (“languaculture”) invented by another writer.

How to avoid committing plagiarism?

• Paraphrasing: re-writing in your own words.• When you read and then write, you should– stating the important points – explain the points – compare and contrast the views of different authors– add your own comments on the topic under

discussion• By doing these things you go beyond merely repeating

the information which you have found.

• How to paraphrase: – Read the paragraph very carefully.– Remove unnecessary words from the paragraph.– Analyze its writing style, and then write in your own

style.– Change the wording but write in similar sentence

structures may still be accused of plagiarism.– The best way is to write down the original idea with

the reference of the material in your own words.

• Follow the rules when copying directly from a text:– Direct copying of part of a passage (e.g. a whole

paragraph) must occur rarely in your writing.– The exact source of your quotation must be

acknowledged.– Show exactly which parts of your text have been

copied from other texts. You must mark the beginning and ending of the quotation and give the number of the page from which it is taken.

http://ec.hku.hk/plagiarism/image/all_in_one.pdf

• Showing where you copied from: Acknowledging your sources

• Footnotes or endnoteslist your sources by number either at the foot of the page or the end of the text.

• Brief references in the textIn the text you acknowledge a source by giving the author’s family name and the date of publication. Readers can then check this in a references list at the end

http://ec.hku.hk/plagiarism/image/all_in_one.pdf

Safe practices

• Reading with note-taking.• Writing paraphrases or summaries.• Writing direct quotations.• Writing about another's ideas. • Revising & proofreading before finalizing your

paper.

References

• The OWL at Purdue: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/

• Writing center @ Uni. Of Delaware: http://www.english.udel.edu/wc/student/handouts/plagiarism.html

• Gibaldi, J. (2003). Chapter 2: Plagiarism. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (6th ed), 65-75. NY: MLA.

• You have plagiarized if:• You directly quoted, changed around only a few words and

phrases, or changed the order of the original’s sentences.• While browsing the Web, you copied text and pasted it into

your paper without quotation marks or without citing the source.

• You presented facts or paraphrased someone’s wording without acknowledgement.

• You bought or otherwise acquired a research paper and handed in part or all of it as your own.

•

• You can avoid plagiarism by:• Keeping the following three categories distinct in your notes:

your ideas, your summaries of others’ material and exact wording you copy.

• For your summaries and exact wording, immediately write down from which work you received your information from including edition, year, page(s), etc.

• Identifying the sources of all material you borrow – exact wording, paraphrases, ideas, arguments, and facts. (These are in text citations.)

• Checking with your teacher when you are uncertain about your use of sources.