Plagiarism Citing and listing academic references

What is Plagiarism?  Plagiarism is defined as “Passing off someone else’s work as your own”.  There are different types and different degrees of plagiarism

Plagiarism  Copying directly from a text, word for word  Using an attractive phrase or sentence you have found somewhere  Using text copied and pasted from the internet  Paraphrasing the words of a text very closely  Copying from the work of another student  Downloading or copying pictures, photographs, or diagrams without acknowledging your source.

Plagiarism  Even if you change words or sentences you have ‘borrowed’ or put them in a different order, the result is still plagiarism.  Plagiarism is treated very seriously and plagiarised work is usually disqualified.

Use your own words  Even if you don’t think you write well – they count for more than copied text, and show your understanding.

Why bother researching?  The quality of your research feeds into the quality of your final report/essay/article  It shows you have “read around” the subject  Gives you a better chance of doing good work & getting good grades

Why bother citing references?  Taking another person’s work as your own is plagiarism  Basically it is CHEATING  Citing references shows you have researched and acknowledged your sources  Gives your work an academic “air”

Why bother listing references?  Indicates the breadth of your research  Allows context of your quotations and citations to be checked  Allows the reader to do further reading on a particular area of interest

The Harvard Referencing system  One of a number of referencing systems  Fairly straightforward  Gets easier with practice.

Harvard referencing system  Boodle link   We’ll get the gist of the system and then carry out a practice exercise

Practice exercise  You will get 3 extracts from systems analysis text books  From these make up a coherent paragraph using parts of each extract  Cite your references in the text and list them according to the Harvard system  Harvard Referencing Harvard Referencing

Conclusion  Do bother to research  Do bother to reference  Use the Harvard systems in reports and essays  It gets easier with practice.

Quotation:  Quotation is using someone's words. When an exact quote of a few lines is used, the passage should be enclosed by quotation marks and the source should be documented according to standard documentation style.  The following is an example using the Modern Language Association's style (MLA)  According to an article in the Globe & Mail on May 7, 2002 an Ipsos-Reid poll showed that, "Almost a third of Americans consider Canada just another state, many mistakenly think Japan and China are their biggest trading partners and most say Britain is their country's best ally."(1)  For a longer quotation, do not enclose the passage in quotation marks; instead, indent the entire passage and use proper documentation.

Paraphrase:  Paraphrasing is using someone else's ideas by putting them in your own words. This is a skill you will learn to master when incorporating sources into your writing. Although you use your own words to paraphrase, you must still acknowledge the source of the information