J. Kelly Robison
One of the most common reasons for the failure of a research paper is plagiarism. In college, students constantly hear information, opinions, and ideas through lectures, readings, class discussion, and other formats. Students incorporate all of this into research papers. However, it is necessary to tell the reader of the research paper where the information, opinions, and ideas came from. Presenting those items without giving clear credit is plagiarism. Plagiarism is stealing, the stealing of ideas, and as such is punished severely.
There are several different species of plagiarism.
When someone commits overt plagiarism, that person has simply stolen a complete paper or sections of a paper. This type of plagiarism has been going on for years, though it has become easier with the advent of the World Wide Web. There are dozens of paper mills online that will sell, for a price, a complete term paper on almost any subject. However, this is also the easiest type of plagiarism for an instructor to catch. A simple web search using key phrases out of the paper will tell the instructor that the paper has been plagiarized. If you can find a paper online, so can the professor. Remember that your professor's first training is in research.
Students sometimes believe that if they take paragraphs out of various sources, put quotation marks around those paragraphs, then cite the paragraph, that this is not plagiarism. Wrong, it is. A research paper is composed of your own writing and your own words. The information used is gather from other sources, but then framed in your own style. If the paper is not composed of your own words, then it is plagiarized.
A paper that has been stolen will then receive an 'F' and the student might also receive an 'F' for the semester. Sometimes, the student faces disciplinary action and expulsion from college.
Example:
The following was submitted as part of a research paper. The problem is, this selection is the first paragraph of a web site on the Enlightenment. The research paper received an 'F.'
The eighteenth century was a century of mind-boggling change; when Europeans entered the nineteenth century, they lived in a world that barely resembled the beginning of the eighteenth century. In the one hundred years in between, European thought became overwhelmingly mechanistic as the natural philosophy of Isaac Newton was applied to individual, social, political, and economic life. The century saw the development of the philosophe movement,which articulated the full values of the European Enlightenment, including deism, religious tolerance, and political and economic theories that would dramatically change the face of European society. Europe itself changed from a household economy to an industrial economy. This change, perhaps one of the most earth-shattering transitions in human history, permanently altered the face of European society and the family. Finally, the century ended in revolution. The ideas of the philosophes were translated into new governments--one in France and one in America--that shook the old order down to its very roots.
This form of plagiarism is somewhat trickier for the student. What happens, usually, is that the student writes down on notecards exactly what is in the source he is using. When it comes times to write the paper, the student simply writes down what is on the notecard or something very close. To avoid this, a student should write down only the pertinent information in the source then, when it comes time to write the paper, the student should use his own words.
Failing to tell the reader where information and ideas came from is a crime of omission. If a student does not cite his sources, the reader cannot tell what ideas belong to the student and what ideas came from other sources.
Plagiarism: Using another person’s or group’s words, ideas, or data as one’s own. To avoid plagiarizing, a student must give credit through footnotes, citations, or proper quotation structure when he/she uses:
Ignorance of plagiarism is not a legitimate defense against a charge of plagiarism. It is the responsibility of a college student to know what constitutes plagiarism. Any questions about what constitutes plagiarism should be discussed with the faculty member that gave the assignment
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