Is it plagiarism?

Is it plagiarism? A Discussion

Ethics is doing the right thing even when no one is looking. Plagiarism is theft of intellectual property. It is a form of cheating or stealing. If you present the work of others—words, images, sounds, ideas--as your own, you are plagiarizing. As students you should be concerned about learning, and about developing habits of scholarship.

The most obvious form of plagiarism is stealing an author's exact words and failing to use quotation marks or to cite the author. However, plagiarism can be far more subtle. Many students plagiarize unintentionally.

In order to be sure you avoid plagiarism, you’ll need to have a clear idea of exactly what might be considered plagiarism. Have you, or have you ever heard of anyone else actually doing any of these things? (No names, please.) Before we discuss these cases as a class, decide which of the following you would consider plagiarism. Some are clearer examples than others. Be ready to discuss your responses with the class.

Copying or sharing assignments Yes No Not Sure

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Failing to cite a commonly known Yes No Not Sure

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Failing to cite a statistic Yes No Not Sure

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Paraphrasing the work of others you find in books, magazines, Web sites without documentation  Yes No Not Sure

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Asking another student to write a paper for you  Yes No Not Sure

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Copying material from another source, citing the material in your bibliography, but leaving out in-text documentation.  Yes No Not Sure

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Listing works in your bibliography that you have not used or read Yes No Not Sure

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Mixing the words of an author with your own without documentation  Yes No Not Sure

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Taking a paper you wrote for one class and submitting to another teacher  Yes No Not Sure

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Having your parent substantially edit your work Yes No Not Sure

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Copying and pasting relevant pieces of electronic text together as you research, citing as you go along Yes No Not Sure

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Copying and pasting relevant pieces of electronic text together as you research without citing Yes No Not Sure

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Presenting a paper or document you found on the Internet as your own Yes No Not Sure

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Substantially editing a paper you found on the Internet  Yes No Not Sure

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When collaborating with other students, changing papers slightly to make each one a little different  Yes No Not Sure

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Pasting an image from a Web site into your multimedia project and documenting it  Yes No Not Sure

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Pasting an image from a Web site into your Web page and documenting it  Yes No Not Sure

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