At FVTC, plagiarism is unacceptable in any learning situation. To avoid it, you must know what it is!

1. Presenting as your own the words, work or opinions of someone else.

You plagiarize if you submit as your own work without appropriate documentation or quotation marks:

• All or part of a written or spoken assignment copied from another person's manuscript.
• All or part of an assignment copied or paraphrased from a source, e.g., book, magazine, Internet/WWW site, or pamphlet.
• The sequence of ideas, arrangements of material and pattern of thought of someone else, even though you express them in your own words.

You are an accomplice in plagiarism and equally guilty if:

• You allow your paper, in outline or finished form, to be copied and submitted as the work of another.
• You do a written assignment for another student and let be submitted as the other student's work.
• You keep or contribute to a file of papers or speeches without the intent that these papers or speeches be copied and submitted as the work of someone other than the author.

Plagiarism occurs when the student submitting a paper for a course:

• Doesn't properly attribute words or ideas to a source.
• Quotes from another author's writing without citing that author's work--this INCLUDES WWW materials.
• Cites, with quotation marks, portions of another author's work, but uses more of that work without quotation marks and without attribution.
• Takes a paper in whole or in part from a site on the Web or a "library" of already-written papers.
• Steals a paper from another student and then submits that paper as coursework.
• Submits the paper twice for 2 different assignments.

• Takes the results of another's research and attempts to pass those results off as his/her own work. This includes "citing" material from sources that have been gathered by another author.

 2. "The unacknowledged use of another person's work, in the form of original ideas, strategies, and research as well as another person's writing in the form of sentences, phrases, and innovative terminology." (Brenda Spatt, Writing from Sources, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983, p. 438)

DO'S:

1. DO acknowledge all sources: use direct quotes AND paraphrases.

2. DO take clear notes: be sure to mark your ideas separate from the author's ideas.

3. DO utilize the resources available on campus; e.g., the Faculty Resource Center.

4. DO make your citations clear and concise.

DON'TS:

1. DON'T turn in the same paper for two different classes.

2. DON'T forget to credit your sources.

3. DON'T change a few words in the ideas of the author and then call them your own.

Plagiarism Examples

• Failing to cite written material that is directly quoted or paraphrased from another source.
• Failing to give credit for use of others' ideas, pictures, graphs, diagrams, or figures.

For example--

M In accordance with the instructor's directions, Student A consulted 10 sources while preparing a term paper, and listed all 10 sources in the Works Cited. Student A also consulted 2 other sources and relied on them substantially to develop the thesis of the paper and its structure but failed to provide citations or to list them in the Works Cited. Student A has committed an act of plagiarism by not citing the final 2 sources.

M Student B found the following statement while doing research for a paper about law school: "The best way to prepare for the law is to come to the study of the law as a well-read person. Thus alone can one acquire the capacity to use the English language on paper and in speech and with the habits of clear thinking which only a truly liberal education can give." (Felix Frankfurter, "Advice to a Young Man Interested in Going Into Law," in Ephriam London, ed., The Law as Literature (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), p. 725.) Student B wrote in the paper that "only a liberal education can give a person the habits of clear thinking required for law school," and did not cite Frankfurter. This student would be subject to plagiarism penalties for paraphrasing without a citation (unacceptable as word-for-word copying).

To avoid plagiarism: Follow the guidelines and rules for citation in writing handbooks, textbooks and standard style manuals (MLA, APA).

And by the way--Plagiarism and Groupwork--there are differences!

Groupwork

A formally established project to be done by a number of students in common, resulting in a single report, essay, or other artifact of the project or in a number of such results.

Legitimate Cooperation

Any constructive educational and intellectual practice that aims to facilitate optimal learning outcomes through interaction between students (e.g., researching and writing joint projects, essays, papers, presentations; discussions; study groups, etc.). Legitimate cooperation is based on the principle that producing the work remains the independent responsibility of the student (or group of students where a joint project is undertaken), while recognizing the educational value of interaction between students.

References

English Department, Calvin College, http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engl/plagiar.htm

University of Michigan, John Wittier-Ferguson, Director of Undergraduate Studies, http://www.lsa.umich.edu/english/undergraduate/plag.htm

University of Sydney Academic Policy 1996, http://www.usyd.edu.au/planning/policy/exams/14_0pla.html

Wellesley, http://www.wellesley.edu/DeanStudent/StudHandbook/plagiari.html

Willamette University's Plagiarism and Cheating Policy, http://www.Willamette.edu/wu/policy/cheat.html