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What is Plagiarism?
[Adapted from an article by SuEllen Shaw,
Professor of English and Director of MSUM's Write Site in Writer's Corner, Winter 1995-96]
Definition
Taken from the Latin words plagiarius, meaning
plunderer, and plagium, meaning kidnapping, plagiarism means
"to steal and use (the ideas or writings of another) as one's
own," according to The American Heritage Dictionary, second
edition. Going further, Stephen Glazier in
Random House's Word Menu
defines plagiarism as "appropriation and publication of another's
writing without consent" (409). He also defines it as "literary
theft; stealing another's work without giving credit, passing it off as
one's own" (543). To summarize, plagiarism means taking someone
else's words, ideas, or specialized information and passing them off as
one's own; it is intellectual theft.
Plagiarism: How to and How Not to Use Material
Years ago Mary Pryor, now retired from MSUM's
English Department, gave four pointers on avoiding plagiarism.
Pointer 1. Whenever you use more than four words
in a row that occurred exactly in the same order in your source material,
put the words into quotations marks and use a parenthetical note to give
credit to your source.
Example:
Source: (a book on Robert Frost)
By the last stanza, however, we realize that the poet is talking
about something more than the choice of paths in a wood, for such a
choice would be relatively unimportant.
Your Theme:
The poem "The Road Not Taken" is structured by a symbol,
for the roads referred to are more important than just "the choice
of paths in a wood" (38).
Pointer 2. If the words are your own, but the
idea comes from your source, you do not need quotation marks, but you do
need to give credit to your source parenthetically, and you need to supply
a lead-in which tells whose idea it is.
Example:
Source: (same as above)
Your Theme:
Symbolism is important in the poem "The Road Not Taken"
because, as Laurence Perrine indicated, by the end of the poem the
reader realizes that Frost is concerned with something more important
than deciding which path to choose in the wood where he was walking
(Perrine 38).
Pointer 3. You must not just put a
parenthetical note at the end of a paragraph to indicate that all the
ideas in that paragraph came from a source. The reader has no way of
knowing whether just the last sentence or the last several words or the
whole paragraph is someone else's idea. Your lead shows where your
summary/paraphrase starts.
Pointer 4. Any information you use in your paper
that is not general knowledge requires that you give credit to a source.
When in doubt, cite your source.
Summary and Paraphrase
Using another author's words and ideas improperly is often the result
of a student's careless or inept summarizing and paraphrasing. Diane
Hacker in A Writer's Reference (216-217) writes:
"When you summarize or paraphrase, [naming] the
source is not enough; you must restate the source's meaning using only
your own words. You are guilty of plagiarism...if you half-copy the
author's sentences - either by mixing the author's well-chosen words
without using quotation marks or by plugging your own synonyms into the
author's sentence structure. The following paraphrases are plagiarized - even though
the source is cited - because their language is too close to that of the
original source."
Original Version:
If the existence of a signing ape was unsettling for linguists, it was
also startling news for animal behaviorists. -Davis, Eloquent Animals,
p.26.
Unacceptable Borrowing of Words:
The existence of a signing ape unsettled linguists and startled animal
behaviorists (Davis 26).
Unacceptable Borrowing of Structure:
If the presence of a sign-language-using chimp was disturbing for
scientists studying language, it was also surprising to scientists
studying animal behavior (Davis 26).
Acceptable Paraphrases:
When they learned of an ape's ability to use sign language, both
linguists and animal behaviorists were taken by surprise (Davis 26).
According to Flora Davis, linguists and animal
behaviorists were unprepared for the news that a chip could communicate
with its trainers through sign language (Davis 26).
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