Student pages: Tiferes Citation and Plagiarism Guide

Tutorial on Plagiarism

The purpose of this tutorial is to familiarize yourself with the knowledge of what constitutes plagiarism and how to discourage it in your classes. If you work through this tutorial and hand in the two assignment results to Mrs. Train, she will provide a lovely certificate! A nice one :-D

Step One: Definitions

Citation: A Wikipedia entry defines citation as "a reference to a published or unpublished source (not always the original source)." Citation is used to document a source. This means providing information that allows someone to locate the source, and can include author, title, date, page number, etc
Plagiarim: Misrepresenting somebody else's work as your own. This can include written material, web information, images, music, graphs, e-mails - and even ideas!
MLA (Modern Language Association) style - this format is most common for citing sources within the liberal arts and humanities such as literature, art, languages and philosophy.
APA (American Psychological Association) style - this is generally used within sciences and social sciences, for example anthropology, economics, geography, history, political science, psychology, social studies, and sociology.
Paraphrase - to put text in your own words. Note that the bulk of the work must be in your words; changing only a few words counts as plagiarism.
Fair Dealing Policy - the conditions under which limited use or copyrighted material is allowed without requiring permission from the rights holders. In the U.S. it is called Fair Use. There's no definitive amount you can use in the classroom settings and lots of material on the Internet about this.
More terminology can be found at the University Of Alberta Library's Guide to Plagiarism

Step Two: What is Plagiarism?

Please go to the University of Indiana Bloomington School of Education's Tutorial on Understanding Plagiarism.

Click on What Is Plagiarism at Indiana University? Read the definition of Plagiarism.
Click on the link near the bottom of the page that says: Let's see if you understand: Click here to take a short quiz For each page, read the original source material, paying attention to the highlighted words, then look at the sample student work.
Answer the question below the examples. If you answer incorrectly, you will get a chance to correct yourself.
Click on the Next Item link at the bottom of each page. There are 10 pages.
Read the conclusion.

Return to https://www.indiana.edu/~tedfrick/plagiarism/ and read the material on How to Recognize Plagiarism.
ASSIGNMENT: Take the test as a Non IU student.
When you pass, print off the certificate and hand in a copy as a record of your achievement.

NOTE: Here are some areas that particularly confuse students:

It is still plagiarism if you paraphrase.
You can't just use a few synonyms. Either change the idea or phrase into your own words, completely, or quote exactly as you find it. In either case you must cite the information because it wasn't your idea. The only difference is, if you use the exact phrase, you must put it into quotation marks.
If you put something in quotes, then it's not plagiarism.
Incorrect. You must still provide the source along with the quotation marks.
It it's on the internet, it means anyone can use it.
Nope. The material is owned by the author of the website or the article and you much acknowledge it. If there is no author given, then use whatever information you can find, eg. name of the website.
I'm a student so I can use what I want.
No, your teacher will still expect you to give sources. Plagiarism is a form of cheating and it's bad. Also, you are cheating yourself by taking the easy way out.
I don't have to give a source for images, audio, movies, flyers, etc.
No, again. You do, unless you created the media. Would you want someone stealing your art or writing?
Do I have to quote every bit of information!
You do NOT have to quote something that is common knowledge or a well-known fact. If unsure, please speak to your teacher.

Step Three: How can I Discourage Plagiarism in my Class?

The first step in discouraging plagiarism is to understand why students plagiarize. Read this article from the New York Times, Plagiarism Lines blur for Students in Digital Age
What is our school's official policy on plagiarism? What are the consequences?
There is zero tolerance for a work that is plagiarized. Punishment can range from an automatic mark of zero to more serious consequences for repeated instances. Assignment rubrics should include a category for proper citation.
Read these articles on how to to develop lessons that encourage thinking, not copying:

ASSIGNMENT: Write down 3 reasons that students plagiarize material from the internet. Then, suggest 3 ways that you, personally, can change an assignment to make it more plagiarism-proof. Hand in your answers and we can share them in the discussion section of this wiki.

Instructions for Students: Citing Your Sources

Please use the following format to cite your sources: ☐APA ☐MLA
Use ☐In-Text Citation ☐End-Notes ☐Footnotes for your page references.
You ☐may ☐may NOT use Wikipedia.com as a source for this project.
You must reference the following source(s) in your project:

☐Book ☐Web ☐Journal ☐Primary Resource ☐Multi-media (art, music, video) ☐Interview

Examples of common knowledge that you don’t have to cite are:

How to Cite Sources:

If you use an exact quote, you must use quotation marks around it.
If you paraphrase information (put in your own words), you don’t need quotation marks.
In either case, you must include an in-text citation, endnote or footnote indicating the source.
In either case, you must include the source in Works Cited (MLA) or References (APA).
If the information, idea or multimedia content is not your own, follow 2 and 3, above.

Please refer to the Research Guide available at http://bit.ly/T6kqjK for citation help.
There is also information on http://tiferes.pbworks.com under Student Resources > Citing Sources.
Please include the full web-site address of on-line resources so that your teacher can find it. That means that you don’t write www.tiferes.ca(unless it is on the home page) but www.tiferes.ca/gallery/art11.htm
If you are not certain whether you need to cite a source (for example, common knowledge), please consult your teacher.
You may use www.citationmachine.net or www.easybib.com to help format your courses.

Teacher Info

APA is usually used for Geography, Math, Phys Ed, Science, Law and Computer Studies.
MLA is usually used for the English, History, Languages and the arts.

Use ☐ In-Text Citation ☐ End-Notes ☐ Footnotes for your page references.

In-text citations (in parenthetical citations or citations in brackets) have generally replaced the older method of footnotes and endnotes, however some disciplines still use them.

You ☐ may ☐ may NOT use Wikipedia.com as a source for this project.

Wikipedia can be a good starting point. Consider allowing it as one of several sources.Information tends to be more up-to-date than traditional encyclopedias and texts. It is constantly policed by a huge volunteer community that will quickly remove inaccurate or controversial information. The links at the bottom of a page are often quite useful as well. I tell my grade 10 computer students that Wikipedia should never be used as the only source, and only if permitted by a teacher. Some professors don’t allow it at all.

You must reference the following source(s) in your project:

☐ Book ☐ Web ☐ Periodical or Journal ☐ Primary Resource

☐ Multi-media (art, music, video) ☐ Interview

By explicitly including your research requirements, you may avoid students only using superficial web sources.

Please remind students that periodicals and journals are available through their local library.

Examples of common knowledge that you don’t have to cite are:

(Please give example based on your own subject, eg.
Stephen Harper is Prime Minister of Canada, the dates for WWI and WWII, that Rashi is an acronym for Rabbi Shlomo Itzhaki, etc.)

Students must include whole web address in Citation

We require students to use full web-site address of on-line resources so that you, the teacher, can find it.

Many students only write down the root (basic www.website.com) part of the reference. Please remind them to include the whole address.

More Resources ….

There is information on http://tiferes.pbworks.com under Student Resources > Citing Sources.

The tiferes.pbworks.com site is our new digital resource library. Please encourage students to use it and feel free to add your own reliable resources.

On-Line Citation Tools

Please allow students to use www.citationmachine.net or www.easybib.com

I give these two websites to my grade 10 computer class. University professors are sharing them, too.

They help students format their citations. The bottom line is to get them to cite sources, so please allow their use.