Stacy Ukishima – Plagiarism Elective

June 26, 2003

 

Plagiarism:  After reading the two articles on plagiarism, I realized how students might not truly understand what plagiarism is.  In the article, “Plagiarism:  What it is and How to Recognize and Avoid it,” the author provides an original paragraph taken from a book and then shows an examples of an unacceptable and acceptable paraphrase.  A great class activity – after defining and discussing plagiarism – would be to give students original paragraphs and “paraphrased” paragraphs and have them choose which are acceptable and why. 

 

I also thought that the Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers article offered some great tips to help teachers understand plagiarism and then discourage it in a positive way.

 

Assignment:   It tried to see where Buddy plagiarized his paragraph from, but both Findsame.com and integriguard.com were bad links.  I used Google’s advanced search and easily found the article where he plagiarized. (I attached the link and the article on the following page.)

 

While surfing for a detection site, I found an article that compared various ones:

http://online.northumbria.ac.uk/faculties/art/information_studies/Imri/JISCPAS/site/pubs_detect_dettech_findsame.asp

 

I also found a good article on plagiarism with links to detection sites:

http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/hannah/CandIT/plagiarism.html

 

And, finally, another detection service offering a free trial: 

http://www.turnitin.com/static/free_trial.html

I signed up for this just to compare to Google’s detection capabilities, and I am awaiting their email with my password.  I will let you know if it does not locate Buddy’s plagiarism.

 

 

http://www.nps.gov/anti/battle.htm

 

OTHER KEY PAGES:

Maryland Campaign Maps

Battle: Morning Phase

Battle: Midday Phase

Battle: Afternoon Phase

Why Lee Invaded Maryland

Battle Time Line

Battlefield Map

Battlefield Information

 

GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE'S first invasion of the North culminated with the Battle of Antietam, in Maryland (or Sharpsburg, as the South called it). The battle took place on Wednesday, September 17, 1862, just 18 days after the Confederate victory at Second Manassas, 40 miles to the southeast in Virginia.

Not only was this the first major Civil War engagement on Northern soil, it was also the bloodiest single day battle in American history.

To view the magnitude of the losses, consider that Antietam resulted in nine times as many Americans killed or wounded (23,000 soldiers) as took place on June 6, 1944--D-day, the so-called "longest day" of World War II.* Also consider that more soldiers were killed and wounded at the Battle of Antietam than the deaths of all Americans in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican War, and Spanish-American War combined.

The loss of human life at Antietam shocked both sides doing battle that day. And it nearly resulted in Lee's entire army, with its back to the Potomac River, being cut off from retreat across the Potomac (through Shepherdstown) and being captured by the stronger Union forces.

The battle also became a turning point, an engagement that changed the entire course of the Civil War. Antietam not only halted Lee's bold invasion of the North (see Why Lee Invaded Maryland) but thwarted his efforts to force Lincoln to sue for peace. It also provided Lincoln with the victory he needed to announce the abolition of slavery in the South. And with that proclamation of Emancipation, Lincoln was able to broaden the base of the war and may have prevented England and France from lending support to a country that engaged in human bondage. The battle sealed the fate of the Confederacy.

 

 

*According to National Archives data, dated 9/15/97: American casualties at Omaha and Utah beaches on D-Day totaled 2,510

 

 

 

 

PLAGIARISM – WHAT IT IS AND HOW YOU CAN

HELP YOUR STUDENTS TO AVOID IT

 

 

WHAT IS PLAGIARISM?  In simplest terms, plagiarism is using another person’s work without giving them credit. Sounds easy enough to understand, but it is often confusing to students. While they may understand straight forward “copying” of someone’s work is wrong, they may not realize that modifying text and claiming it as their own is also a form of plagiarism.

 

For Example, I write the following sentence:

Last summer my family traveled to Hawaii to visit relatives; while there, we went to Lanikai Beach – perhaps the most beautiful beach in the world.

 

A student may paraphrase that sentence to read:

Last summer the Ukishimas went to Hawaii and saw the most beautiful beach in the world, Lanikai Beach.

 

The words are not exactly the same, but the ideas are, and the opinion that Lanikai Beach may be the most beautiful beach in the world, is my personal opinion.  The student must either state: According to Stacy Ukishima in her essay entitled, “What I Did Last Summer,” she feels that “blah, blah, blah” or “Lanikai is perhaps the most beautiful beach in the world” and then footnote the quote or paraphrase.

 

Students do not have to cite statements that are “common knowledge” such as “George Washington was our first president,” since that information can be found in numerous sources (students may still want to cite the source in their bibliography).

 

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO PREVENT PLAGIARISM?  As a teacher, you can take several steps to prevent plagiarism.  You can reassure students that you are interested in their ideas and opinions – and also in how well they can get information from other sources and put it into their own words.  Another idea is to write a paragraph on the board and give students acceptable and not acceptable examples of paraphrasing – make a game out of it and let them tell you whether you would get an “A” or a “F” for each example.

 

You may also want to read one of these informative articles to learn more about plagiarism:

http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~mspears/plagiarism.html - This one is geared more toward students and is written in easy-to-understand language.

http://www.comp.leeds.ac.uk/hannah/CandIT/plagiarism.html - This one is excellent for adults and provides links to plagiarism detection sites.

 

Also, the article “Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers,” by Robert Harris, also offers some good suggestions for helping students understand plagiarism. 

http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm

 

HOW CAN I TELL IF A STUDENT HAS PLAGIARIZED?

Even after taking preventative steps to avoid plagiarism, some student is going to hand you a paper that contains information that you are pretty certain that they did not write. To check if they plagiarized (from an Internet source at least) you can use one of the following sites:

 

http://www.turnitin.com/static/free_trial.html

or

http://www.google.com/advanced_search

You can type in your suspect sentence in the FIND “with the exact phrase” space.

 

It is easy to plagiarize inadvertently because what kids find in books or on the Web “sounds so perfect.”  Kids must be encouraged to use their own voices and to form their own opinions, which will sound even more perfect to their teacher!