Hi! Okay so you ask yourself, what has time management got to do with plagiarism? Unfortunately, one of the roots of poor scholarship is the inability to understand appropriate levels of citation and what should be cited in papers and assignments. Time pressure can play into this.
Sometimes, in our haste to build a paper because we all have busy lives, we can interweave ideas, thoughts and even the actual words of many other authors together to provide one cohesive document. Many students who employ this technique, called weaving, don't even realize that they are guilty of academic dishonesty. Sometimes, they avoid using their own words fearing they are not good enough. Sometimes, they actually are worried about providing citations because they think that this will make them look like they are cheating. So, instead of citing their quotations (or paraphrases) and explaining what they mean in their own words, they string together the words of others believing that they can't make it on their own! Unfortunately, they will and do get caught because computer software, such as 'Turn it in', makes it easier for cheating students to get caught than it ever was before.
To start with, when you begin your papers you should always keep a good research log of all the materials that you've read in creating your research stream (journals and other readings). Whether this log is on paper or your computer is unimportant, as long as you make and keep one. You should include details like the full citation for books, journals and other written materials, the URL and date you accessed it if it's a web page, as well as a description of the information you read. Use good, reliable sources (we will discuss this again, but don't use Wikipedia). Keeping a good log does not just allow you to trace back the actual words of the journals or books you've read, it also ensures you don't take credit for ideas that don't belong to you. This can happen though a kind of osmosis; you forget your readings and think the ideas now are yours, not the author's. Here, you've made a big mistake.
I'm going to provide you with a couple of sources on academic dishonesty. If you go to OWL, at the University of Purdue, there is a lot of information about writing well and using sources properly. Their address is:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/557/01/
Owl also has a very good site on plagiarism at:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/
Additionally, the Learning Centre at University of Leicester also has extensive documentation in this area at:
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ssds/slc/resources/writing
They are also happy to talk to students as well.
The way I understand it, the reason that students often get involved in academic dishonesty is because they spend too little time thinking through and structuring their academic papers. Time spent thinking is never wasted, and students undervalue their learning when they don't take the time to understand and explain the information they gather for assignments and papers. They don't even know if the data they've gathered is good, bad or indifferent. They're afraid to make judgments, which is part of analysing your quotations in a good paper, and scared that their own thoughts are worthless.
This is wrong. The most important part of learning is what you understand and take away from your texts, from the journal articles you've read or found online and about the subject itself. When you're unsure, you should communicate with your module tutors through blackboard or even this skills tutor about your concerns when you write. This will nip plagiarism in the bud, and when you begin to think academically, poor scholarship or plagiarism will no longer be an issue for you.
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Since we have a lot from our course outlines, do we need to make reference to them always?
ReplyDeleteHi
ReplyDeletemy name is Mohamed El-ashry and I have recently joined the course, but i have had no corresspondence with you yet. However, I liked your way of writing with the fluent smooth flow of ideas that can be understood easily.
I wonder how the software "turn it in" will truely identify plagiarism while people/scholars may coincidentally have the same ideas put together in more or less similar pharses. For instance, When we read any scientific publications in particular the ones concerning medical conditions, one my come across phrases and sentences either identical or very close together. I still strongly believe that those authors have not copied each other but just the mere chance of putting the words into phrases and sentences describing the same condition can lead to such similarity.
The first question regarding this post, "do we need to make reference to them always" is important. It is true that outlines, guidelines and seminars do talk a lot about plagiarism and referencing. Why do we do this?
ReplyDeleteFirst, I would like to point out that this blog focuses on a different aspect of plagiarism. I am genuinely concerned for all the busy students in our programme who have found themselves challenged to fulfill the requirements of the MBA and MSc programme whilst providing adequate and full referencing of their materials and research. In fact, despite many attempts by myself and all my colleagues in the DL programme to explain citation standards, the gloomy spectacle of poor scholarship still shines bright. Many students are still unaware or do not know how to fix this problem. Additionally, many of the materials I have referred to in this blog, such as Purdue University's excellent site on plagiarism and the materials in the Learning Centre at U of Leicester, are frequently either unknown or forgotten. Poor scholarship is prevalent enough, unfortunately, to concern every tutor and professor at every university in England. Unfortunately, even the hallowed halls of Harvard University have had to discharge professors because of flawed scholarship, although this occurrence is very rare. Clearly, these professors had not read this week's blog.
Personally, I remain optimistic that given the correct information and the essential skills, students will learn that an excellent academic paper is more than a long string of poorly referenced quotations. In fact, many of my students ask me to help them with this thorny issue. If you have acquired all the skills you need in this area, bravo. If you don't have these essential skills, don't worry the bus will be stopping here again soon.
KB
Dear Mohamed El-ashry:
ReplyDeleteHello & welcome to KB's blog. I'm glad that you are finding the topics of interest. Pull up a chair.
In regard to the software "turn it in", it is important to understand both the complexity and detail that has been given to the design of the software. It takes into account lengthy heuristic linguistic repetions and varied wordings throughout student papers to discover the hidden places where students, as assiduous as otters, have secreted their unlawful dens of pilfered source materials. You would probably be surprised or even shocked to learn that cheaters, although busy, are not usually that imaginative! In fact, the sources of good research materials are often already known to wily professors because the topic is well known to them before they assign it to the students.
So, when a paper is examined by 'Turn it in', no student is failed for a single word alone. It is the pattern in the language that reveals the plagiarist. Some students have gone to a great trouble to cheat, a feat which always surprises me since cheating is so much trouble. It was the intention of the developers of the software that it be reliable, testable and that it identify all the sources of poor scholarship in student papers in detail. As I stated earlier, a professor will probably already know that a particular paper has been plagiarized even before it is analysed. This is because scholars know their field of study well. There are trends and developments throughout academics, whether it is leadership in business, the study of the Brontes or particle physics. Scholars are alert to these trends, and often teach and work in their own areas of research. This helps students study with scholars who are experts, and this carries on the Western academic tradition. Thus, in regard to research, it is often a surprisingly small world for the sad plagiarist. The Harvard case mentioned above illustrates, that even at the highest levels, cheaters never prosper.
Have a pleasant week.
KB
Don't forget, you can always write me at ulsmdltutor@le.ac.uk if you have any individual concerns or wish to ask any questions.