Tuesday, November 16, 2010

#12 Plagiarism and the Internet

After reading Klausman's article titled, "Teaching About Plagiarism in the Age of the Internet" I thought about my own education, and what I defined as plagiarism.  Klausman pointed out that currently, students no longer use paper forms of media/sources, but mostly electronic sources.  It is very popular to "Google" or "Bing" a subject and find information, and use that information.  However, I find that students, at least at college level are smart enough to know how to cite the author's work.  I learned before high school what a works cited or bibliography was.  I also learned that Wikipedia is not a reliable source, and should NEVER be cited in an academic paper.

ACADEMIC DISHONESTY. Always a major subject in school.  This subject was on every syllabus, and the teacher or professor warned students that if there was any plagiarism or academic dishonesty then the result would be a failed grade in the class.  I remember this always struck fear inside of me when I would research, for fear I would commit plagiarism and not realize it.  I could not understand why teachers encouraged students to research, but terrified them of committing plagiarism.  Are we not supposed to share what we have found? Yes, but a student cannot claim the findings as his or her own, but must cite or accredit or attribute to someone or some cite.  Usually, after a quote, it should be properly cited. If students cite their work, there should be no problem.

Klausman stated that there are three types of plagiarism:

  1. direct plagiarism: which is the classic idea of plagiarism, copying word for word what an author wrote
  2. paraphrased plagiarism in which a student changes some of the words of a quote 
  3. patchwork plagiarism in which uses author's original words, and mix with student's original words
My question is, so what is correct? If we cite everything, and put quotations around every direct quote, and attribute and give credit to any idea or phrase that is not our own, is it still plagiarism?
For example:
According to SOME PUBLISHED JOURNAL, "Blah blah... so and so... means this, then this means that" which means.... such and such (AUTHOR DATE). 
Is that plagiarism? if you quote it? Klausman seemed as though any work that is put into your paper is plagiarism. I understand his concepts, and how easy it is to copy words from a text online, but if we cite and quote from the text, can we still use it without failing the class and committing the forbidden, "ACADEMIC DISHONESTY"? 

No comments:

Post a Comment