Statement of Academic Policy and Statement of Academic IntegrityAPPENDIXAVOIDING PLAGIARISM* Avoiding Plagiarism You do not plagiarize, however, when you draw on other writers' material and acknowledge your sources. That procedure is a crucial part of honest research writing (. . .). Nevertheless, because a research paper requires by definition that you integrate other people's ideas with your own, you may not always be sure what constitutes plagiarism. This appendix shows you how to avoid plagiarism by acknowledging sources when necessary and by using them accurately and fairly. Knowing what to acknowledge When you write a research paper, you coordinate information from three kinds of sources: (1) your independent thoughts and experiences; (2) common knowledge, the basic knowledge people share; and (3) other people's independent thoughts and experiences. Of the three, you must acknowledge the third, the work of others.Your independent material Common knowledge Folk literature, which is popularly known and cannot be traced to particular writers, is considered common knowledge. Mother Goose nursery rhymes and fairy tales like "Snow White" are examples. However, all literature traceable to a particular writer should be acknowledged. Even a familiar phrase like "miles to go before I sleep" (from Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening") is literature, not folk literature, and requires acknowledgment. Commonsense observations, such as the idea that weather affects people's spirits or that inflation is most troublesome for people with low and fixed incomes, are considered common knowledge and do not require acknowledgment, even when they also appear in someone else's writing. But a scientist's findings about the effects of high humidity on people with high blood pressure, or an economist's argument about the effects of inflation on immigrants from China, will require acknowledgment. You may treat common knowledge as your own, even if you have to look it up in a reference book. You may not know, for example, the dates of the French Revolution or the standard definition of photosynthesis, although these are considered common knowledge. If you do not know a subject well enough to determine whether a piece of information is common knowledge, make a record of the source as you would for any other quotation or paraphrase. As you read more about the subject, the information may come up repeatedly without acknowledgment, in which case it is probably common knowledge. But if you are still in doubt when you finish your research, always acknowledge the source. Someone else's independent material ORIGINAL The character and mentality of the keepers may be of more importance in understanding prisons than the character and mentality of the kept. PLAGIARISM But the character and mentality of prison officials (the keepers) is of more importance in understanding prisons than the character and mentality of prisoners (the kept). Though the writer has made some changes in Mitford's original and even altered the meaning slightly (by changing may be to is), she has plagiarized on several counts. She has copied key words (character, mentality, keepers, kept), duplicated the entire sentence structure, and lifted the idea—all without acknowledging the source. As illustrated in the following section, the writer must either enclose the exact quotation in quotation marks or state the idea in her own words and in her own sentence. Whichever she does, she must acknowledge Mitford as the source. You need to acknowledge another's material no matter how you use it, how much of it you use, or how often you use it. Whether you are quoting a single important word, paraphrasing a single sentence, or summarizing three paragraphs, and whether you are using the source only once or a dozen times, you must acknowledge the original author every time. If you read someone else's material during your research but do not include any of that material in your final draft, you need not acknowledge the source with a note because you have not actually used the material. However, your instructor may ask you to include such sources in your bibliography. (. . .). Quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing QUOTATION "The character and mentality of the keepers," maintains Jessica Mitford, "may be of more importance in understanding prisons than the character and mentality of the kept." 7 When you summarize or paraphrase, you state in your own words and sentence structures the meaning of someone else's writing. In a summary you extract the central idea from several sentences, paragraphs, or even pages, condensing it into one or more sentences of your own. In a paraphrase you follow the original more closely, often sentence by sentence, recording in your own words and the author's line of reasoning. (. . .). Since the words and the sentence structures are yours, you do not enclose either a summary or a paraphrase in quotation marks, although, of course, you must acknowledge the author of the idea. Here is a paraphrase of the Mitford quotation above. PARAPHRASE Jessica Mitford maintains that we may be able to learn more about prisoners from the psychology of the prison officials than from that of the prisoners.7 If you adopt the source's sentence pattern and simply substitute synonyms for key words, or if you use the original words and merely change the sentence pattern, you are not paraphrasing but plagiarizing, even if you acknowledge the source, because both methods use someone else's expression without quotation marks. The inadequate paraphrase below plagiarizes the original source, Frederick C. Crew's The Tragedy of Manners: Moral Drama in the Latter Novels of Henry James (1957; rpt. Hamden, Conn.: Shoe String Press, 1971), p. 8. ORIGINAL In each case I have tried to show that all the action in a "Jamesian novel" may be taken as a result of philosophical differences of opinion among the principal characters, and that these differences in turn are explainable by reference to the characters' differing social backgrounds. PLAGIARISM According to Crews, the action in a "Jamesian novel" comes from philosophical differences of opinion between characters. These differences can be explained by examining the characters' differing social backgrounds.5 The plagiarized passage lifts several expressions verbatim from the source, without change and without quotation marks: "action in a ‘Jamesian novel'"; "philosophical differences of opinion"; "the characters' differing social backgrounds." Thus even though the writer acknowledges the author's works (indicated by the use of Crew's name and the note number 5), he plagiarizes because he does not also acknowledge the author's words with quotation marks. The paraphrase below both conveys and acknowledges the author's meaning without stealing his manner of expression. PARAPHRASE According to Crews, the character in Henry James's novels live out philosophies acquired from their upbringing and their place in society.5 In this paraphrase, although the writer retains Crew's essential meaning, he restates that meaning in a sentence that he himself has clearly constructed and designed to fit his larger purpose. In paraphrasing or summarizing you must not only devise your own form of expression (or place quotation marks around the author's expressions) but also represent the author's meaning exactly without distorting it. In the following inaccurate paraphrase the writer has avoided plagiarism but has stated a meaning exactly opposite to that of the original. The original quotation, from the artist Henri Matisse, appears in Jack D. Flam, Matisse on Art (London: Phaidon, 1973), p. 148. ORIGINAL For the artist creation begins with vision. To see is itself a creative operation, requiring an effort. Everything that we see in our daily life is more or less distorted by acquired habits, and this is perhaps more evident in an age like ours when cinema posters and magazines present us every day with a flood of ready-made images which are to the eye what prejudices are to the mind. INACCURATE PARAPHRASE Matisse said that seeing is the first step of the artistic act and that we learn how to see by looking at posters and magazines.7 The revision below combines paraphrase and quotation to represent the author's meaning exactly. IMPROVED PARAPHRASE Matisse said that seeing is the first step of the artistic art because we must overcome our visual "habits" and "prejudices," particularly those we develop in response to the popular images of our culture.7 To be sure you acknowledge sources fairly and do not plagiarize, review this checklist both before beginning to write your paper and again after you have completed your first draft.
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