Plagiarism

Plagiarism: What is it? How to Avoid it!

(Parts of this Quizziz adapted from an original lesson by Laura Randazzo)

First, let's define plagiarism

Taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as your own.

This is also taking credit for work you did not do.

Intentional or unintentional, it's still considered a type of theft.

There are also heavy consequences in terms of academic punishments and the loss of respect from faculty and peers.

How to avoid this humiliation?

Just properly CITE THE SOURCE

Otherwise, BOOM goes your grade and academic reputation.

Let's practice.

Read through the following excerpt:

• .

Multiple Choice

Which student or students committed plagiarism?

• Amy: Jobs' knowledge that he was given up at birth left some scars, his friends agreed.

• Becky: Isaacson reports that several people close to Steve Jobs believe that the fact that he was given up at birth left some scars" (4).

• Carla: Del Yocam, a man who worked for many years with Steve Jobs, believes that part of Jobs' need to control all facets of his work was connected to the fact that he was adopted (Isaacson 4).

Why?

No source is listed for where Amy found this information. Even if she personally interviewed a bunch of Jobs' friends, she still needs to include that information in the passage.

In this format, she's stolen from Isaacson and has jus bombed the essay.

Three students want to use information from an article by Susan Logan-McCraken on page 39 of Catster Magazine

...Their sense of hearing is one of the best on the planet. Except for bats and moths, cats have the best hearing of all land animals. They are born deaf, but when their amazing sense of hearing is fully developed by 4 weeks of age, they can hear 65,000 cycles per second(or hertz), whereas we can only hear 20,000.

Multiple Choice

Which student committed plagiarism?

• Daniel: A kitten's ability to hear is fuly developed by the time the animal is four weeks old (Logan-McCraken 39).

• Eddie: A typical cat's hearing is more than three times better than the average human's hearing. scientists report.

• Franklin: Cats are incredibly focused animals; aside fro moths and bats, a cat's hearing is said to be the best among all other animals on the planet (Logan-McCaracken 39).

Adding a simple citation means that you avoid plagiarism. Citations must be used when you use a quote or a paraphrase. If it is not your own thinking, you must cite it.

Poll

Gina was assigned an essay on the Great Depression. Last year, she had a similar assignment in a different class. She takes heer old essay, updates the introductory paragraph and changes a few body paragraph sentences before turning it in to this year's teacher.

Did Gina committ plagiarism?

• Yes

• No

YES!

You can give yourself permission to use your own previous work, but plagiarism isn't just about copying someone else's ideas. It's about claiming to do work that you haven't done.

By recycling your old essay and presenting it as fresh work, you just plagiarized yourself.

This is an academic "double-dip".

Poll

These lines were taken from students' papers. Which of them contains plagiarized content?

• Helen: U.S. President Barack Obama served two terms, holding office from 2009-2016.

• Iris: U.S. President Ronald Regan worked many years as a Hollywood actor before entering politics.

• Julia: U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt hled the office from 1933-1945, helping to pull Americans out of the Great Depression.

Trick Question!

NONE of these are plagiarized because each student's sentence is a generally accepted fact.

Information that is considered common knowledge does not need to be attributed to a source.

To Review:

When taking information in the form of quotes or a paraphrase from any source - you must cite it to avoid plagiarism.

Respecting the intellectual property of others is important in both school and the real world

Once you learn how to cite - it is easy to do. Put direct quotes in quotation marks and be sure to cite them with the proper MLA citation.