www.whyville.net Jun 11, 2006 Weekly Issue



Icyfairy
Guest Writer

The Plague of Plagiarism

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Some people have y-mailed me, and accused me of plagiarism on my last article "Toy Stories". To settle these accusations, I did take that article from a book. But, I assumed this would be all right, because I cited the book title and author. I didn't think much of this when I wrote the article, but after the sheer amount of Whyvillians who sent mail accusing me of stealing work, I decided to put a little bit of research into plagiarism.

First, what is plagiarism? The American Heritage Dictionary defines it as:

"The act of appropriating the literary composition of another author, or excerpts, ideas, or passages therefrom, and passing the material off as one's own creation."

Ha-ha, Mr. Dictionary Writers. I doubt most people could make heads or tails of that. But according to my dad, (who is like a dictionary to me, and can explain things in English) plagiarism is "taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own." There, that's a little bit clearer. Plagiarism is when you use someone else's writing, but don't tell anyone that you're using it. But that also causes many more questions to arise . . .

Such as, what if you have some really great quotes you would like to use in an article or essay? Or what if you would like to share an article you've found in a book, or a newspaper with other people?

To answer this, I give you one word: Cite. (Pronounced sight)

Again, another big word. But dictionaries are wondrous things, aren't they? According to Merriam-Webster OnLine, citing is a verb that means:

" . . . to give as an example "

There you go. Citing is to take a quote use it, but you must explain somewhere in your essay, article, etc., that it is not your quote. It is not a quote that you made up yourself, but it is something that someone else wrote and you are using it to back up an argument or you are only showing it to some people who might find it interesting.

And now, this is the final question, I promise. How do you cite something that you would like to use in an essay or article? This is simple. It's called a bibliography.

Now I'm sure many of you know what a bibliography is, so I'll just give you the summary: It is when you cite a quote or story that you have used in an essay or article. Easy, right?

Not always. Bibliographies often come at the end of some written work, and must be in a very specific formula. (For an example, look to the end of this article.) Bibliographies are sometimes hard to write, but now with the advancements of the internet, it's become easier. Websites like citationmachine.net do all the work for you!

Now, back to plagiarism.

Plagiarism is a big problem among schools. Teachers can find it nearly impossible to catch someone who's plagiarized work. Many websites are out there about plagiarism that some of you high-schoolers may have used it called TurnItIn.com. This website helps your teachers match your essays and stories to already-written things on the internet, and keeps people from getting good grades they don't deserve.

To end this article, here are some astonishing statistics, from plagiarism.org:

-A study by The Center for Academic Integrity found that almost 80% of college students admit to cheating at least once.

-According to a survey by the Psychological Record 36% of undergraduates have admitted to plagiarizing written material.

-A poll conducted by US News and World Reports found that 90% of students believe that cheaters are either never caught or have never been appropriately disciplined.

-The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next (Free Press, July 1996) states that 58.3% of high school students let someone else copy their work in 1969, and 97.5% did so in 1989.

-A study conducted by Ronald M. Aaron and Robert T. Georgia: Administrator Perceptions of Student Academic Dishonesty in Collegiate Institutions found that 257 chief student affairs officers across the country believe that colleges and universities have not addressed the cheating problem adequately.

-A national survey published in Education Week found that 54% of students admitted to plagiarizing from the internet; 74% of students admitted that at least once during the past school year they had engaged in "serious" cheating; and 47% of students believe their teachers sometimes choose to ignore students who are cheating.

Much love but no cheating,
Icyfairy.

Author's Note:Bibliography:

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright 2004, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.

"Merriam-Webster OnLine." 2005-2006. Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster. 30 May 2006 .

David, Warlick . "Son of Citation Machine." Landmarks Citation Machine. October 29, 2000. The Landmark Project. 30 May 2006 .

"Plagiarism.org." 2005. iParadigms, LLC.. 30 May 2006 .

And, belatedly, the citing for my last article:

Bathroom Reader's Institute, Uncle John's All-Purpose Bathroom Reader. 13th Edition. Ashland, Oregon: Bathroom Readers' Press, 2000.

 

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