Is this plagiarism or not?
- Directions: Read the following scenarios and decide whether it is a case of plagiarism or not. (Y or N) and explain why.
__N__ 1. Kyoko needs to write a report on American politics. She looks up Barack Obama in Wikipedia and discovers he is the 44th president of the United States. She includes this information in her report but doesn’t mention Wikipedia.
Since it is common knowledge that Barack Obama is the 44th president of the United States, this is not a case of plagiarism.
__Y__2. Tam is writing a paper on a novel for his English class. Since the whole class is reading the same book, he doesn’t need to use a citation.
He needs to cite the novel if he uses quotes from the book in his paper.
__N__3. Sugi wrote a paper for his European history class last semester and got an A on the paper. This semester, his Political Science class is addressing some of the same issues that are in his History paper. He checks with his professor first who agrees with Sugi, so he uses the material from his History paper.
If the material that Sugi uses is from his own work and the professor has agreed to its usage, it is not plagiarism.
__Y__4. Ramiro, Stephan, April, and Chris are working on a group project. Chris submits his work and the others suspect that some of it came from the Internet, but it sounds good, so they submit it.
Just because it ‘sounds good’ does not exclude the possibility of plagiarism. It may be in fact that it was taken without a citation to credit the source.
__Y__5. Maria finds a lot of good information for her paper on the Internet. She carefully changes the wording and prepares a good paraphrase. She doesn’t copy anything verbatim.
Even if you paraphrase you still must include a citation and a reference from where you got the information.
- Directions: Decide whether the information described in each scenario will require citation of the source (Y or N) and explain why.
__Y__1. You clearly identify the source at the beginning of a paragraph that summarizes the author’s ideas about teenage drinking. Since readers will naturally assume all of the ideas in the paragraph are from the source, no additional citation is necessary.
The author still needs to cite his sources if they are not from the same source.
__N__2. In your paper on the history of aviation you state the date of the Wright brothers’ first successful flight at Kitty Hawk.
Historical facts such as the Wright brothers’ flight do not need to be cited.
__N__3. In a paper on the civil rights movement you find some general, well-known background information in an encyclopedia. It is obviously common knowledge, so you copy the information and include it in your paper.
Well known background information in an encyclopedia does need to be cited because it was copied even if it’s general background information.
__N__4. You ask your mother about the steps she went through in obtaining a bank loan for a new car. You include this information in your paper.
Information taken from someone like your mother does not need to be cited.
__N__5. You skim a 325-page book entitled Using the Internet. A major theme throughout the book is that the Internet is an important technological achievement. You include this in your paper.
Themes are like general ideas and cannot be claimed by any individual, similar to a topic. A citation is not needed.
__Y__6. You find an article that takes the same position you have taken on the subject of gun control. To save time you summarize in your paper a portion of the argument from the article, since the author’s ideas are identical to your own.
(Excerpts above are from the following text: Clines, R.H & Cobb, E. R. (2012) Research Writing Simplified, 7th Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.)
Even if some ideas in an article are similar or exact to yours, passing them off as your own can be considered a form of plagiarism, hence you need to cite and give credit to the author.
Find a recent image or video online that speaks powerfully to you for whatever reason: it may show something painful like a natural disaster, inspiring like moments of protest or reconciliation, or dramatic like a sporting achievement. (You can find such items online by searching “most famous,” “iconic,” or “consequential,” and “photographs.”) Then study the image or video carefully and critically to consider arguments it might support. Choose one and then explain in a couple of paragraphs how you would use it to support a particular claim. Don’t forget to embed this image in your blog by using the Add Media option.
https://www.thecoolist.com/best-famous-photographers/
Author Info: Mary Ellen Mark, a photographer.
There are two children, one is smoking, cigarettes in her hand seems very sophisticated, which indicates that she has been smoking for a long time. Her facial expression and body movements were relaxed, and another was sitting in the bathtub watching her sister smoke.
In the image, the girl that is holding the cigarette looks like a mother in the time period it seems to be taken in. It also could be a more modern picture which would still accurately help depict the message of the youth becoming adults early in life. In other words, children are starting to mature faster. In the past couple of decades there have been pandemics, economic crises, and civil rights fights. Those are very heavy and deep things to cope with even at older ages, but when you’re a child and you’re exposed to those things in a sense your childhood is taken away from you and you have to grow up. The youth are meant to look lively and with energy, these too girls don’t tell us that they have been through hardships that made them grow up faster than they should have.
Based on the image, we can see two young children in the photograph. The child on the left is simply sitting down while the other child is standing and smoking a cigarette. The child smoking a cigarette can indicate an argument based on how drugs have been advertised to younger generations. This argument has been going on for quite some time now because this has been an ongoing issue. Many children have started smoking at a young age due to peer pressure and their parents being smokers. This has led many of them to become addicted even before they turn 18. Children are meant to enjoy their lives and not feel the need to smoke because of their surroundings and addiction.
