Saturday, June 16, 2012

Research Journal Part Eight: plagiarism

Research Journal Part Eight: Plagiarism


1.  Last summer, my family and I traveled to Chicago, which was quite different from the rural area I grew up in. We saw the dinosaur Sue at the Field Museum, and ate pizza at Gino's East.

This does not need to be cited, as it is a first person’s experience.

2.  Americans want to create a more perfect union; they also want to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for everybody.

This statement should be cited as it appears to be from another source other than the writers, and it is stating opinion about other than himself.
According to (provide the source) Americans want ....yada yada yada ;o)

3. I find it ridiculous that 57% of high school students think their teachers assign too much homework.

 The writer states his opinion (not requiring citing) but put in a statistic that may be common knowledge. Since, it is only one sentence. I will go with, not cited, assuming that 57% is common knowledge. The author could have said “over half” instead of giving a statistic.

3.  Martin Luther King was certain that nobody would want to be contented with a surfacy type of social analysis that concerns itself only with effects and doesn't deal with root causes.

4.  Needs to be cited, it is a summary of the above article. Author could paraphrase, and add citation.

5. Martin Luther King wrote that the city of Birmingham's "white power structure" left African-Americans there "no alternative" but to demonstrate ("Letter from the Birmingham Jail" para. 5).

This one is good. It introduces the author, as well as citing the quote from from the article.

5.  In "Letter from the Birmingham Jail," King writes to fellow clergy saying that although they "deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham, your statement fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations."

Needs to be cited; because of use of direct quotes to an article. Introducing the author is not enough here.

I would add the page numbers behind the quote.

7. My friend Kara told me that she loves living so close to the ocean.

This one is fine.

8. Americans are guaranteed the right to freely gather for peaceful meetings.

The statement needs to be cited.  The statement implies the author is speaking for others without proof, and referring to himself.

I think Americans are guaranteed the right to freely gather for a peaceful meeting.

Plagiarism Summary: Students need to be aware that improper citing still equals plagiarism, it is very important to properly use the rules of citation. Any use of anyone’s intellectual material without acknowledgement is plagiarism. The rule of thumb is if you did not create it, give credit to the source that did. You don’t need to cite your own ideas and experiences, as that is a primary source.  If you summarize an idea of someone else’s it needs to be quoted. Always cite any statistics, charts, tables and graphs.  Same goes for images, photos, or graphics that are not yours.

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