Plagiarism Review

1. Plagiarism Review What is plagiarism? What’s the big deal about plagiarism? How can I avoid plagiarism?

2. What is plagiarism? “There are some actions that can almost unquestionably be labeled plagiarism. Some of these include buying, stealing, or borrowing a paper (including, of course, copying an entire paper or article from the Web); hiring someone to write your paper for you; and copying large sections of text from a source without quotation marks or proper citation.” http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/

3. What’s the big deal about plagiarism? • While some rhetorical traditions may not insist so heavily on documenting sources of words, ideas, images, sounds, etc., American academic rhetorical tradition do. A charge of plagiarism can have severe consequences, including expulsion from a university or loss of a job, not to mention a writer's loss of credibility and professional standing. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/

4. Consequences for Plagiarism in Ms. Hurd’s Class • If you get caught (and you probably will, students are never as good at cheating as they think they are), • your parents will be contacted, • An administrator will be the one to decide if you can re-submit the assignment or if you won’t receive any credit at all, • and I will write up an administrator referral for violation of the RCPS Academic Honesty Policy: Rule 21.0 A student shall not cheat on tests, examinations, projects, homework, or reports by giving or receiving unauthorized assistance nor be involved in plagiarism or other acts of academic dishonesty.

5. How can I avoid plagiarism? • The following two slides provide lists for when you need to give credit to where you got materials from. When we prepare to write papers that include research, we’ll talk more in-depth about this issue again. This is just a quick review. • To be on the safe side, if you’re not sure whether or not you need to give credit for using someone else’s work, give them credit. • If you’re not writing an essay or another formal academic or business assignment, it’s fine to give credit by telling your reader where you got your information from at the bottom of the page in small print. LIKE THIS: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/

6. Give credit when… • Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium • Information you gain through interviewing or conversing with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in writing • When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase • When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials • When you reuse or repost any electronically-available media, including images, audio, video, or other media http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/

7. You don’t have to give credit when… • Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject • When you are writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments • When you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video, audio, etc. • When you are using "common knowledge," things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents) • When you are using generally-accepted facts, e.g., pollution is bad for the environment, including facts that are accepted within particular discourse communities, e.g., in the field of composition studies, "writing is a process" is a generally-accepted fact. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/