Info about Plagiarism

OK, I think students at a 300-level all know about plagiarism, but it just happened in one of my classes (even if unintentionally), so we have to talk about this.

Sometimes, it's difficult to distinguish whether it is already plagiarism, or just "too close to the text."

Please all read the definition of plagiarism.

I said in class that for your Annotated Bibliographies, you can use the information other researchers have written into their Abstracts and Conclusions, so you don't need to read through the whole research essay and can summarize their findings in a short paragraph. I DID NOT SAY THAT YOU CAN COPY THEIR ENTIRE TEXT WORD FOR WORD into your own summary!!!

This would be plagiarism = academic dishonesty, and can result in 1) failing grade for this paper, 2) failing grade for the whole course, 3) expulsion from the program.

When you submit your final Research Paper, you also have to submit your three sources from your Annotated Bibliography in a hard copy, and I will check whether you have quoted the authors properly in APA style. If you cite, use quotation marks and the proper APA citation, such as (Miller 2006, 78).

This will be extremely important in your Literature Review, where you have to use actual quotes from the three sources you've read, to blend them with your topic (the pros and cons). In an Annotated Bibliography, there must not be any quotations; it is solely your own summary of what you've read, and your personal reaction to it. Even if we write the rest of the research paper in passive voice, you are allowed to use the personal "I" in your Annotated Bibliography. Of course, it would be better to use the passive voice here, too - such as "This article is a valuable resource for education majors, because...," instead of saying "This article is helpful to me as an education major."

Even if you use just ONE sentence from somebody else, or one keyword he/she coined, you have to use quotation marks and the APA citation; you cannot present it as your own.

Quotes that are four lines or longer always have to be indented one tab, and then don't carry quotation marks. After the last word of the quotation, you write the citation (Miller 2006, 78).

Quotes shorter than 4 lines do have quotation marks and go directly in your text flow without indentation.

If you have any questions, or are not sure whether it is plagiarism or not, ask me before you submit your final paper, so we can fix it and you won't face any consequences for plagiarism committed unintentionally. Also, check our Course Schedule about its paragraph on plagiarism.