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English Department Policy on Plagiarism Your responsibility as a student: cite and document your sources. If you have information that comes from somewhere other than your own head, you must cite the source, regardless of whether you summarize, paraphrase or quote directly. The Definition of Plagiarism The Modern Language Association Manual, a guide used by many disciplines in documenting resources for papers, defines plagiarism as “the use of another person’s ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source.” People work with others’ ideas all the time, and in fact, many times you have worked with other students’ ideas that came through small group collaboration or class discussions of particular texts. Plagiarizing is not to be confused with working with an idea that came from the free flow of a classroom exchange, for collaboration is more about your trying to come to terms with what you think and why or how you do so. One reason why it is so important that you participate in these classroom exchanges is that you don’t just take others’ ideas but give your own, so that everyone can be part of a discussion process that helps ideas take shape and grow. Collaboration helps you find what you really want to say, and therein lies the difference between plagiarism. Plagiarism is a form of intellectual theft because it takes an idea, and keeps it exactly the same. The idea never grows. The idea never has had a chance to become part of you in all the uniqueness that is your experience and your intellect. Another form of plagiarism is taking an idea and altering it so slightly that the changes are really what are called “cosmetic” ones. An example would be taking someone’s song and changing all the masculine pronouns to feminine ones or changing the line “He gunned the accelerator” to a paraphrased form such as, “He drove so quickly.” In both cases the writer’s essential property has been stolen. Most often people feel very honored if you want to work with something they’ve created--but that work requires that you do indeed honor people by giving credit for their hard work. “Citing the source” is what is done in order to give the original writer credit. We cite the source because thinking up an idea and writing a well crafted sentence is hard work! As the MLA manual points out, “The best scholars generously acknowledge their debts to others.” It is not only wrong then to steal others’ work; it also shows a mean-spiritedness and a terrible misunderstanding of what real learning demands. Most people feel really good about themselves when they are able to point to something they have created because the creation bears something of themselves. People like to put their stamp on things. So if you steal others’ “stamp,” or get your own “stamp” stolen, chances are you won’t feel very good about it. And as with any theft, stealing others’ intellectual property comes with consequences, some of which are rather harsh. Consequences of Plagiarism If you are suspected of stealing another’s ideas, your teacher will attempt to determine if you did so because of misunderstanding, carelessness, or mean-spiritedness. Generally, if you submit someone else’s work as your own, you will not receive any credit for that work because it is not yours. If it is determined that you did understand what is meant by plagiarized work or were careless in your use or crediting of other sources, your first offense will result in a loss of credit for the assignment. However, if in conversation, it is clear to your teacher that your actions were the result of a misunderstanding, you will be allowed to complete the assignment again, or something similar, for partial credit to demonstrate your willingness to learn, grow, and rectify your mistake. There are higher expectations for older students because you are not new to the academic life at the high school and should have a far firmer understanding of what is meant by intellectual theft. Perhaps the most serious consequence that befalls students who submit another’s work under their own name, however, is a breach in the trust shared between teachers and their students. Following through on a renewed commitment to intellectual honesty will work to repair that breach, for we all recognize that education always offers a second chance--and your teachers are there to help that happen. While submitting a paper completed in one class for another class is not plagiarism, it speaks of an intellectual dishonesty that requires special note here. Learning is a lifelong process, and when you submit past work as a present endeavor, you are, in essence, saying that your learning has not progressed any further than those past efforts. Each class you take offers you an opportunity to take your learning to some place it has not been before, and you undermine that learning by not using prior learning in new ways. Therefore, the consequences of submitting old work to a new endeavor will be the same as if you plagiarized another’s work. Samples of What Is And What Is Not Plagiarism Beginning to a Student’s Response (Chapters 25-31 Of To Kill a Mockingbird): Maycomb’s reaction to the news of Tom’s death demonstrates how willingly they will interpret the actions of one black person negatively in order for it to feed into their existing negative see the world fairly can only occur within each feelings for all black people. Scout realizes that the decision to individual’s heart, and that there is no way to reach a person who has not become personally convinced in the virtue of following a moral course of action. For the black... From
GradeSaver: ClassicNote on To Kill a Mockingbird Summary: Jem and Dill were out swimming on the day that Atticus and Calpurnia went to see Tom’s wife, and they got a ride with them. Dill said that when Tom’s wife saw the two of them, she seemed to faint, falling to the ground in a heap. Scout is remembering this weeks later, after Dill has gone home to Meridian. Tom’s death was only news in Maycomb for two days… Analysis: Maycomb’s reaction to the news of Tom’s death demonstrates how willingly they will interpret the actions of one black person negatively in order for it to feed into their existing negative feelings for all black people. Scout realizes that the decision to see the world fairly can only occur... Plagiarism: The
most blatant form of plagiarism is reproducing someone else’s
sentences more or less verbatim (word for word), and presenting them
as your own. In this case, the student takes the web site’s
analytical portion nearly verbatim without giving any credit to the
source from which it came. The “intent” is clearly to
pass off someone else’s words and ideas as her own. A clear
case of plagiarism because none of the words are the writer’s
own. Example--Student’s response: After reading chapters 25-28, I was struck by how racist people will see their world from an entirely different perspective than a non-racist. A racist could see the simplest act, possibly shaking hands with another person, and think that this is the first step to an assault. I was reading an essay on “Gradesaver.com” and this statement caught my eye: “Maycomb’s reaction to the news of Tom’s death demonstrates how willingly they will interpret the actions of one black person negatively in order for it to feed into their existing negative feelings for all black people” (12). This made me think about Tom. What did he do? He went in and broke up a chifforobe. I interpret this as an act of kindness. Tom is simply helping out. However, in the trial I found out that the Tom’s intent behind the act is because he “felt sorry for her” (178). So what’s the big deal? However, a racist such as Bob Ewell sees Tom’s action from a third perspective: the first step towards relations with his daughter. Back to the news of Tom’s death, the white people see Torn’s escape as “typical mgger act” (278), even going so far as to say, “Once a nigger, always a nigger” (279). This prejudgment... Remember, cite and document your sources. If you have information that comes from somewhere other than your own head, you must cite the source, regardless if it is a summary, paraphrase or direct |
