Plagiarism
and how to avoid it: guide for all students in Dr. Murphy's
classes.
Zero-tolerance:
Plagiarism is, basically, cheating. You are being graded on your
ability to write good English, to develop your own ideas and
theories.
When you present a piece of writing to me with your name at the top,
the
expectation is that you will receive credit because everything in
there
is your work, unless it is clearly indicated that you are relying on
another source. If plagiarism passes unnoticed, a student will
receive
a
higher grade than he or she deserves, in all probability, a higher
grade
than students who have, in fact, worked much harder and presented
their
work more honestly. This is why I do not like to let plagiarism pass
undetected, and, when I do detect it, I punish it strictly.
A printed version of these notes is available from the bookstore at
FSU-Panama. This version has been re-edited slightly for
web-publication.
I am aware that there exist web-sites such as termpapers.com, to
name
but one of many, that will supply students with papers. When I am
suspicious that a paper may come, in whole or in part, from such a
site,
I will spend hours, if necessary, checking out whether my suspicions
are
true. I have even been known to pay money for papers that are
available
for purchase on the web, to confirm my suspicions that the paper
came
from such a source (my suspicions were correct, and the student was
punished). This takes up a lot of my time, which could be better
spent
helping students who are prepared to work to write better papers.
Because of the time and trouble involved, I am not prepared to
accept
any excuses in cases where I find plagiarism. You will receive a
mark
of
0 for that piece of work, and it will be counted towards your final
grade. If you are stupid enough to repeat the offence, you will fail
the
whole course automatically, and I will send a letter to Dr. Langoni
explaining the reasons.
However, many students have explained to me that they find it hard
to
understand the difference between legitimate use of sources, which
is
encouraged, and plagiarism, which is strictly punished. To make sure
that there are no mistakes, I have prepared this handout. If I
return a
paper to you graded at 0, and comment that it is plagiarized, and
you
disagree, or do not understand, come to me and I will explain to you
exactly where your paper goes wrong, using this web-site.
Reasons for citing sources:
Suppose you are writing a paper on Descartes. If you are at all
conscientious, you will actually go to the trouble of reading some
of
Descartes' writings. Probably you will also read some encyclopaedia
articles, that give you some biographical information, and explain
Descartes' place in the history of thought, and probably some
commentaries that help you understand Descartes (many students find
the
commentaries provided by sparknotes to be helpful). In doing so, you
are
making use of other people's work, which is fine: we are engaged in
a
co-operative enterprise, but remember that your fellow workers
deserve
thanks, and the usual way to give thanks is by citing the work in
question.
A citation should always appear immediately by the piece of
information
that is being cited, so that it is apparent straight away exactly
what
has been taken from the source. It is not sufficient to mention
sources
in a bibliography at the end of the paper. The best way of citing is
by
way of a footnote. If you are using Microsoft Word, footnotes are
easy
to insert (ask the office assistant for help). The result will look
like
this1, and then you can write in information that will
appear at the bottom of the page. (Because this is a web-document,
you
must scroll down to the end to read all the notes). Of course, you
may
be using some other word processing program. If you are writing your
paper on Wordperfect or Works, and perhaps you intend to print it in
the
university, where Microsoft Word is used. If so, you will probably
want
to save the document in rich text format, and footnotes may get lost
in
the process. So, an alternative to citing by means of a footnote is
to
cite in parentheses (citation appears like this), and that way, the
information will not be lost.
In my youth, I wrote and printed papers on a Bondwell 8 computer,
using
software so outdated that I could not use a footnote facility. So, I
wrote footnotes in by hand on the final draft of the paper - do that
if
necessary, but make sure the citations appear. Remember, it is better to hand your
paper
in late, and be penalised for being late, than to hand in a paper
with
no citations, and be penalised for plagiarism.
Ideally, the citation should include the title of the book, the
author's name, the date and place of publication, and the page
number,
like this:
James Thrower, Religion the
Classical Theories, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh,
1999,
p. 35
For websites, try to include the author's name and the html.
Notice that the title of a book is usually in italics.
Of course, you don't need to repeat the publication information. If
you
have two successive footnotes that refer to the same book, you can
simply put down
ibid.,p.43
(Latin ibidem: the same)
or, suppose that you refer to Thrower's book, then have several
references to a book by Eliade. Then you want to refer to Thrower's
book
again. You can't put ibid., because that would mean you were
referring
to Eliade's book. So you would write
Thrower, op. cit., p. 44
(Latin for "work cited").
Perhaps you don't have all of this information: you remember reading
something in Sophie's World,
but you don't remember the page number, and you don't have a copy
with
you. Or perhaps you remember something from a book you read in high
school, but you're not sure of the name. In that case, give whatever
information you can, just enough to demonstrate that this comes from
some source. This will at least serve the purpose of expressing
gratitude, and will save you from accusations of plagiarism, but it
is
not ideal, the full details of authorship and publication are
better.
Why give all of this information? Citations do not serve just as a
way
of expressing gratitude to a source you found helpful, they also
enable
the reader to check the source out, to see if it really corresponds
to
what you say.
Perhaps you are offering an interpretation of Descartes that I think
is
incorrect. I am about to give you a low grade, because I think you
have
misunderstood Descartes, but then I notice that you cite a passage
of
Descartes to support your interpretation, a passage that I have
overlooked. I realize that your interpretation makes sense in the
light
of that passage. In that case, so far from marking you down, I will
mark
you up, because you have found an interesting approach to Descartes.
But
I can only give you the credit you deserve if there is a citation to
back up your interpretation (and, of course, if the passage you have
cited really does support what you say).
Sometimes, it may be that you will misunderstand what you read, and
I
may need to point this out. Of course, I can only find that out if I
have the chance to read what you have read. On one occasion, a
student
handed me a rough draft of a paper in which she completely
misinterpreted some important points of metaphysics. She cited the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
as a source. This is one of the best sources of information about
philosophy on the internet, but it is sometimes hard to understand.
By
the time she arrived to discuss her paper, I had read the article
that
she used as a source, and was able to save a lot of time by
explaining
exactly where she had gone wrong in her understanding. The big
advantage
of studying at a university is that you have the chance to engage in
this kind of conversation, and I always try to make useful comments
on
papers if I have time, so that at least you can understand your
mistakes. But this is only possible if I can locate the very same
source
that you have used, and that is the point of a citation, to enable
the
reader to get straight to the exact source that you have used.
Incidentally, one of the reasons I hate plagiarism is because by the
time I have tracked down cases of plagiarism, I have very little
time
left over to comment properly on papers that contain correct
citations.
Direct quotations and paraphrases:
When you use a source, you can either quote it directly, using the
very
same words, or you can paraphrase, stating what the source states,
but
expressing it your own way.
For direct quotations, you should either use speech marks, or
clearly
indent the paragraph and change the format. Quotations marks are
usually
used for short quotations, at most a sentence long, and appear in
you
text like this.
Nietzsche describes those who organise and build states as "violence
artists", and writes of them possessing an "artist's cruelty".2
Or you could include a longer quotation from Nietzsche, like this:
...the active
force that is at work on a grander scale in those violence-artists
and
organizers and that builds states, is basically the same force
that
here, inwardly, on a smaller, pettier scale, in a backwards
direction,
in the "labyrinth of the beasts" to use Goethe's words - creates
for
itself the bad conscience and builds for itself negative ideals:
namely
that instinct for freedom (speaking in my language: the will to
power).
(Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans. M.
Clarke
and
A. Swensen, Hackett, Indianapolis 1998, p. 59)
The format makes it immediately clear that this is a direct
quotation:
it is indented, and is justified. The format must be clearly
different
from the rest of the paper - you could also try using a different
font. Incidentally, notice that Nietzsche uses speech marks
when
he quotes from Goethe. Whether you use speech marks or an indented
paragraph, make sure that it is absolutely clear where you words
start
and finish, and where we have the words of your source.
You should avoid having too many direct quotations. It is easy, too
easy perhaps, to cut and paste passages from sources on the web,
without
understanding what they mean, or giving any thought as to whether
they
are right or wrong. Nor will you be getting credit for your grammar
in
passages that are quoted. Direct quotations should be used when you
want
to draw attention to some particular way of phrasing things that an
author uses. For example, the following paragraph:
There is a tendency perhaps to associate being an artist with being
passive, to imagine the artist as a mere observer of events, who
does
not interfere. But Nietzsche describes those who organise and build
states as "violence-artists", and writes of them possessing an
"artist's
cruelty".3 Art is here described in terms that are
active,
indeed, aggressive.
Here, the direct quotation is necessary, because the writer is
demonstrating a certain tendency within Nietzsche's work. The whole
paragraph quotation above could be the introduction to an extended
discussion of the meaning of Nietzsche's phrase "will-to-power", in
which the writer spent some time explaining what point he or she
thinks
Nietzsche is making.
So, direct quotations are sometimes necessary, but you shouldn't
have
too many. Frequently, you will want to paraphrase, but give a
source.
Paraphrasing involves rewriting a passage in your own words: this is
a
skill you must acquire. I suggest that you do not start out with the
passage to be paraphrased, and change the odd word here or there.
The
result will almost certainly come close to being a word for word
repeat
of the original passage, and that
would constitute plagiarism. I suggest the following: take
the
passage that you want to paraphrase, summarise it in very brief note
form, then take the notes, and transform them into prose. Only when
you
have done this, turn back to the original passage. Make sure that
you
have not introduced any errors, but have not accidentally retained
the
same phrasing. Of course, if the original contains a particularly
memorable phrase, perhaps something funny, retain it within your
paraphrase, but within direct quotation marks. Even when you paraphrase, you should
remember to include a citation!
When you are doing reading for a paper, keep track of what sources
you
read, and don't confuse notes you make yourself with what's in your
sources: label all documents clearly. Students sometimes claim "Oh,
I
made a mistake. I did read that book/web-site, but I didn't
realize/forgot that this paragraph was from the book/web-site, I
thought
it was something I wrote myself. Oh, I didn't mean to hand in this
version of the paper, I meant to add footnotes..." Don't make these
mistakes: you will be graded according to the paper you hand in as a
final draft, and if I find that it breaks the rules, then it will
receive 0.
Example of paraphrase:
Suppose that I am writing a paper comparing African and Japanese
religion. I decide to use the following passage, which is
taken
from p.161 of Peter Harvey, An
Introduction to Buddhism, Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge,
1990:
The indigenous
religious tradition of Japan is Shinto, the 'Way of the Gods',
which is
based on worship of a range of divine beings, each of them known
as a
kami. Some are seen as personalized creative forces, many as
impersonal
forces present in notable natural objects and animals, and some as
extraordinary humans: anything awe-inspiring or mysterious can be
seen
as a kami. The tradition did not have a strong ethical dimension,
but
it
had a developed appreciation of natural beauty, and a concern for
ritual
purity.
My brief notes, for my use only, might read as follows:
Shinto: 'Way of Gods' Japanese indigenous. Range of divine beings,
kami=divine being, many types, animal, human, forces, mysterious/awe
inspiring. Not strongly ethical, but concern for beauty and purity.
Then, I would paraphrase as follows:
According to Harvey, Shinto, the indigenous religion of Japan,
involves
worship of various entities, humans, animals or impersonal forces,
that
are awe-inspiring or mysterious. The Japanese word for such an
entity
is
a kami. He states that Shinto is concerned more with beauty and
ritual
purity than with questions of ethics.4
Notice that as well as giving a footnote, I mention Harvey by name
at
the start, and in the final sentence, I state "He states": this is
to
remind the reader that these are Harvey's ideas, not mine. Perhaps I
don't agree with Harvey - maybe I think that Shinto has a very
strong
ethical tradition, and he ignores it. As it happens, I know very
little
about Shinto, and am prepared to defer to Harvey's opinion: after
all,
he is writing an introductory text-book for Cambridge University
Press:
University Presses invariably have editors and referees to check the
accuracy of such information. They can make mistakes, but its not
likely. So, I might make it clear that I trust Harvey. If I am going
on
to compare Shinto with an African religion such as Santeria, the
next
paragraph might begin like this:
If Harvey's account of Shinto is correct, and I have no reason to
doubt
it, then clearly there are some striking similarities between
Santeria and Shinto, but one important difference. The Orissa
of
Santeria would appear to be similar in their status to the kami of
Shinto, but one could not say that Santeria lacks an ethical
dimension.
Here, I make it clear that I am relying on Harvey's expertise, and
using his summary of Shinto as the starting point for my comparison
between Shinto and Santeria.5 If a paper has proper
citations,
the line between the reader and the reader's sources is clearly
visible.
Then it is possible to ask questions about how well the sources have
been used: is the writer over-reliant on a single source, does the
writer understand the sources, is the writer uncritical about
sources?
These are questions that I need to ask in order to grade a paper.
Without proper citations, I cannot answer these questions, and so
cannot
grade the paper properly.
Do not expect credit just for citing correctly: some students submit
papers that are made up almost entirely of quotations from other
sources, all correctly cited. They do not receive 0, but they do
receive
a failing grade: writing a paper is not a matter of cutting and
pasting.
If you cite sources properly, you should be able to see as you write
how
much is really yours, and you should consider the questions that I
am
going to ask about your use of sources.
More advice on paraphrasing is now
available.
Be cautious:
It is not usual to give citations for common knowledge, e.g.
if
you state that France is country of which the capital is
Paris,
or
that Manchester United are the world's greatest football club. These
are universally acknowledged facts. But you must be very careful
about
where to draw the line between common knowledge and knowledge known
only to experts. It is much better to make the mistake of citing
when
it is not necessary than to make the mistake of not citing when you
should. You should find that, as you advance in your studies, your
professors say to you "You didn't need to cite that", rather than
saying "You should have cited a source here". Failing to give a
source
when you should causes trouble, giving a source when you didn't need
to
does not cause trouble.
Also, you are just beginning your studies (or at least, this handout
is
written for students who are just beginning at university level), on
many matters you are going to be reliant on expert opinion, and your
papers will reflect that. I once had a student who began a paper by
stating that St. Anselm was undoubtedly the greatest philosopher of
the
Middle Ages. When I asked her what other philosophers of the Middle
Ages
she had read, she said she hadn't read any. Text books and
encyclopaedias exist to help out people in that situation, and
should
be
used to do that. But always remember, you should be responding to
your
sources, and adding your own contribution, however humble.
So remember ...
* Direct quotations clearly separated from the rest of text, by
paragraph indentations or quotation marks
* Paraphrases clearly indicated as such, and phrasing distinct from
original source
* Citations, in parentheses or footnotes given at the point where
the
source is used: bibliography at the end is not sufficient
* If in doubt, cite your source
Article
on
Plagiarism from The
Independent
1 This is a footnote.
2 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans. M.
Clarke
and A. Swensen, Hackett, Indianapolis 1998, p. 59
3 Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morality, trans. M.
Clarke
and A. Swensen, Hackett, Indianapolis 1998, p. 59
4 Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, 1990, p.161
5 Incidentally, if I were grading this paper, I would wonder why a
book
about Buddhism is being used as the main source of information about
Shinto: if the lack of emphasis on ethics in Shinto is important,
shouldn't some works about Shinto be quoted? But that is not a
matter
of
plagiarism, it's a matter of writing a good paper.
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