ELI 100 Online: Plagiarism Advice

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PLAGIARISM- LEARN ABOUT IT!

Plagiarism: when you use another person’s ideas in academic writing without supplying the reader with the original source of the ideas.

Plagiarism is a very serious academic offense that may result in a failing grade for an assignment or a course, and even suspension from school. Therefore, steps must be consciously taken to avoid plagiarism in your academic writing and research.

In the United States, rules regarding plagiarism are different from those in other countries. Ignorance of the rules, “forgetting”, or “mistakes” are not usually considered valid excuses when it comes to plagiarism.

We will discuss plagiarism in more detail before we begin our essay papers. In the meantime, I suggest that you begin to familiarize yourself with the topic and begin to develop strategies that will help you avoid plagiarism.

It is ultimately each student’s responsibility to learn about plagiarism and how to avoid it.

Refer to the following for more information:

• Hacker, Diana. A Writer’s Reference. (pp. 82-85: Citing Sources; avoiding plagiarism), (pp. 323-402: MLA and Alternative styles of documentation). This is your required textbook for this course, so use it.
  
  
• University of Hawaii Student Conduct Code- also available from student services or your counselor. Refer to the section about academic honesty.
  
  
• On the Internet: literally 1000s of sources are available on the web. Check several of them for different kinds of information regarding plagiarism. Here are just two to begin with-
  www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html
  sja.ucdavis.edu/sja/plagiarism.html

With the growing popularity of the Internet, plagiarism has become an increasing problem in academics. A vast amount of information is available on the Internet, making it tempting and easy for students to use other people’s material without proper citation. In addition, many services exist on the Internet offering to “help” students do research or write papers for a fee, and several sites even post “free essays” for students. These are examples of Internet plagiarism.

To combat this problem, schools and other organizations have invested in software to track and detect plagiarism.

Also, there are a number of companies that conduct plagiarism searches for teachers and schools.

The search engine Google is frequently used to detect plagiarized material.

The punishment for plagiarism depends largely on the severity and the intent. In the most minor instances, a student will have to resubmit a plagiarized assignment within a certain time period. In more serious instances, a student could face failure for the assignment or for the course. In the worst instances, a student could face expulsion from the university.

DO NOT RISK PLAGIARISM- IT ISN’T WORTH IT.

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Last modified 8/15/02