Plagiarism is a crime which can be very easily committed
without even realizing it, that’s why every college student need to know about
the detail of it to prevent actually fall into the pit. I didn’t know that there
are that many forms of plagiarism before I read the two articles about it and
it was until then that I realized that I might have unwittingly committed plagiarism
before and for many times. There are examples of those most easily committed
plagiarism, for example, I used to use some good expressions on a certain
subject that was written by someone else in my own article without citing it
because I didn’t know I was already committing plagiarism by doing so. These
two articles are extremely alarming, especially now when we are about to
officially cross the line between high school and college, to face more and
more research and academic writing, to be censored by more stringent rules on
our writings. Thanks to the two articles, we now have a better idea about what
we can and cannot do.
The most significant idea of preventing plagiarism is, cite
everything that is not 100% yours. That include other authors own expression,
their examples, their sentences, and even your friends help, words from your
teacher, etc. This is a huge range of list that a college student need to
remember. Whenever you need to write something, just ask yourself, what don’t I
need to cite?
Once you have the general idea of copyright in your mind and
form a habit of respecting other people’s work, you will be careful enough not
to step in the swamp.
Hey, John. I completely agree with the fact that we do plagiarize when we least notice it. I was also alarmed by the different types of plagiarisms from reading these two articles. It seems like we need to be fairly informed about the consequences of not citing another person's work, even if it's one small phrase that we're using. There are also some cases in which students just copy and paste an entire essay and use it as their own. Now, that, I believe is extremely unacceptable. It really shows a students lack of critical thinking and it simply shows that they're lazy.
ReplyDeleteIn the event in which you're deciding to use another person's work, try to think of different ways you can interpret their work. I totally agree by what you said that we should ask ourselves what it is we need to cite. Another alternative you can take is by paraphrasing their work into your own words. Paraphrasing another person's words into your will not only prevent plagiarism but will train you to accommodate to it. I believe that citing should be the last resort you take; however if it is a necessity to cite another person's work as sources for your essay, simply cite their work.