Plagiarism Vs. Paraphrasing (4th Entry)

Credits to: Onosaka yuha ©

I still remember my first day of class at AUI. That was the day where I first heard the word plagiarism in my grammar class with Mr. Brian Seilstad; he has given us a commitment to sign where it was written: “If I’m caught plagiarizing I will automatically fail this course, and I understand that a report will be sent to the L.C Director as well”. Since then, I understood the ethics of being a student at the university and the loyalty of the academic honesty.

The best way to avoid plagiarism is to write our own ideas in our own words; nevertheless, if we want to use others ‘ideas that is still possible thanks to paraphrasing. In order to use others ‘ideas, we have to give credits to the authors by quoting them and not changing their ideas but just expressing them in a different way. We should know that even paraphrased sources must be cited. However, in some specialized fields such as science, law or business, it can be considered acceptable if the used ideas are not well paraphrased because the technical terms are considered as common knowledge.

Plagiarism is originally derived from the Latin word plagiarius (‘i.e kidnapper’); it’s undoubtedly the most common expression of academic fraud. Plagiarism is taking someone’s ideas without giving him credits to his work. It is manifested by copying a passage directly from an article, a book, an online source… without using quotation marks and clearly citing the credits in parenthetical documentation in the paper itself and on the reference page. Furthermore, even paraphrasing can be considered as  plagiarism when taking someone’s ideas and  expressing them in our own words but not respecting the paraphrasing rules, such as not using quotation marks appropriately or forgetting to cite the name of the author between parenthesis at the end. Fortunately, Plagiarism can easily be checked using some plagia-checkers such as Turnitin.com that has a huge database which guarantee to the authors who make effort writing the authenticity of their work.

Talking about punishments, plagiarism as any kind of cheating may result in severe academic penalties such as university dismissal or class failure or semester off depending on the academic honesty rules of each institution.

         Finally, to avoid involuntary plagiarism while working in a research and writing, we have to keep careful notes that constantly distinguish three types of material: our ideas, our summaries, conclusions and paraphrases of others’ ideas and facts, with their exact source phrasing (Modern Language Association, 2003) .

Works Cited Guidelines

• For more information about works cited pages, see your handbook.
• For more documentation samples, see “MLA and APA Documentation” on the drop down menu at http://lrc.nwfsc.edu. Click on “How to Write MLA Documentation of Electronic Sources.”  See the Adobe files halfway down the screen for examples of various online databases.
• The Online Writing Lab at Purdue University also has additional help at http://owl. english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/.

"Originality is undetected plagiarism."
William Ralph Inge



by Chibi BlackDoom©



by djRimzi©



       

            by xgracefulphoenixx©