To my teacher friends: how to determine plagiarism?

[punkwalrus]

Okay, suppose I have this basic essay due on, let's say kumquats. Now, I know these days teachers are plagued with people who cut and paste from something like Wikipedia (or whatever) on the Internet. But how blurred is this line? Let's take the first two paragraphs from here: http ( Read more... )

Comments

[aurienne]

For the sample you quoted, I'd definitely want to see signal phrases ("According to Wikipedia, ...."), but context also matters. If you're a group of fruit botanists, a lot of that would be common knowledge, and thus no citation necessary, at least for some of the more basic information. In general, it tends to be better to overcite than undercite.

Some useful links:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/563/01/
Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing

Avoiding Plagiarism: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/

Thinking Critically about sources: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/library/rtr.php?module=Judge§ion=Websites&page=01 (because we want you to ABSORB and THINK about the sources given, not just accept them as The Truth)

Lipson, Abigail and Sheila M. Reindl. 'The Responsible Plagiarist: Understanding Students who Misuse Sources". http://media.wiley.com/assets/165/44/jrnls_ABC_JB_lipson803.pdf

(I often encourage my students to cut down their quotes to just 5 words or less -- only the part that they truly can NOT say better than the original.)

[aurienne]

Also, since I happened to be throwing drafts from my Axia students into the turnitin plagiarism checker (similarity matcher), and here's the result:

57% match (Internet from 11/22/08)
http://en.wikipedia.org
(I included your "If I..." sentence)

That would definitely get you turned in for an Academic Integrity Violation there.

You can also make it look beyond the biggest matches, and we see that the wikipedia excerpt is 34% match of http://www.lilesnet.com

(another thing, at UMBC, we define plagiarism as representing someone else's words or ideas as your own!)