AVOIDING PLAGIARISM!

1. AVOIDING PLAGIARISM! Jason M. Ward

2. Has this student (Ahmet) plagiarized? • One could argue that the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, is a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, with its symbol of a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. SOURCE TEXT: • Today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment (from Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin Books, 1985, page 3).  

3. This is plagiarism, pure and simple! No credit is given to the author whose words are copied almost verbatim.

4. Has this student (Zeynep) plagiarized? • The city of Las Vegas is perhaps a metaphor of American national character possessing as its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. (Postman, p. 3). SOURCE TEXT: • Today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment (from Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin Books, 1985, page 3).  

5. This is plagiarism. The student credits the author's work, but the student's words and syntax are too similar to the original. Many students summarize what the author says by paraphrase. This is permissible, but be careful not to use too much of the original syntax and phrasing.

6. Has this student (Deniz) plagiarized? • The American character is preoccupied with entertainment and glitter. The symbol of this is Las Vegas with its theatre and gambling industry (Postman, p. 3). SOURCE TEXT: • Today, we must look to the city of Las Vegas, Nevada, as a metaphor of our national character and aspiration, its symbol a thirty-foot-high cardboard picture of a slot machine and a chorus girl. For Las Vegas is a city entirely devoted to the idea of entertainment, and as such proclaims the spirit of a culture in which all public discourse increasingly takes the form of entertainment (from Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves To Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. New York: Penguin Books, 1985, page 3).

7. This is not plagiarism. It cites the author's work and paraphrases but summarizes the work in the student's words

8. Is this PowerPoint plagiarized? • Yes • No • Impossible to tell http://www.google.co.uk

9. Çok ayıp!  I confess, I plagiarized!  • Some of the PPT was stolen from Drexel University: http://library.drexel.edu/tutorials/plagiarism/plagiarism6.html • Even though I wrote 80% of this quiz, I should have credited Drexel for the work I used from them otherwise it looks like I am pretending it is all my work, which is theft / plagiarism. • Ben utanıyorum 

10. Which of the following is NOT true? • By placing his/her name on work submitted for credit, the student certifies the originality of all work not otherwise identified by appropriate acknowledgments • When you write your name on the paper you are saying: “I wrote this. This is my intellectual property.” • If you write your name on the work of another, you are stealing their property. • You may write your own name on an assignment that you have bought and own even if you did not write it.

11. Four is false. The work you do is supposed to be your work.  By doing this work, you are learning.  If someone else does the work, they will learn and not you.  The work you hand in is plagiarised if someone else did it for you; this is actually called collusion.  It doesn't matter if the person who did it was paid or did the work as a favour, if you submit it as yours, but you didn’t do it, you are guilty of plagiarism.

12. The following is not plagiarized? • "Plagiarism is the inclusion of someone else's words, ideas, or data as one's own work" (Google). • True • Depends • False

13. It IS plagiarism. An incomplete citation also counts as plagiarism as it means that the work that you did cannot be verified .  Google is not the source but just the route that you took to get there.  • Writing "Google" is like writing "library" instead of the name of the book you used from there.

14. If you are working on an essay or presentation with a partner and your partner plagiarizes, will you also fail? • Yes • Depends • No

15. Yes. If you are working on pairwork, then you are both responsible for the paper that you submit for assessment.  If this paper is plagiarised then you will both fail.  If you suspect your partner of plagiarism, you must talk to him/her or me about it before you hand in the final or you will both be reported for plagiarism.

16. You can always avoid getting caught for plagiarism if you only plagiarize from printed sources rather than material on the web. • No • Depends • Yes

17. No. Just because it might not show up in Google does not mean it is not out there. There are hundreds of private databases which contain electronic versions of printed material and these can be searched with the kind of anti-plagiarism software that we have here at Koç.  • There is also the risk that someone else might use the same material from the source you used and then post this work online.  If you plagiarise you have a very high chance of getting caught.  Furthermore, if your teacher strongly suspects you of plagiarism, s/he can still take action without finding the original

18. If you use only a couple of words from another source, do you have to quote it? • It depends.  Generally, you only need to quote phrases of six or more words but if the phrase is shorter and is a key phrase that belongs to someone else's idea, you should give credit to the source.   • False.  You only need to quote phrases of six or more words. • True.  You always have to "quote" every word that you use that is not your own.

19. It depends. Generally, you do not have to worry about short phrases; HOWEVER, if these few words are part of a slogan or sum up somebody else's idea, you should quote them to avoid charges of plagiarism.  • For example, a few years ago, the Barack Obama campaign was accused of plagiarism by Hillary Clinton because Obama's five-word slogan, "Change you can believe in" was not invented by Obama but actually came from an earlier speech by Deval Patrick in 2006

20. Thank you! Please do not Plagiarize