Plagiarism
As defined in Saskatchewan Polytechnic's Student Code of Conduct (Academic) (1211a), "Plagiarism is a breach of academic integrity where the student represents someone else’s idea and/or work as one’s own. This includes, but is not limited to, print material, photos, drawings, computer code, and designs" (Sask Polytech, 2019, p.2).
Please watch the videos below for an explanation of plagiarism, examples of plagiarized work, and tips for avoiding plagiarism in your work.
Related options
To support your position, you can use the information that you have found in three ways:
1. Quoting: Using the author's exact words
| Original text | Quote and citation |
|
A personality trait is a relatively stable characteristic that causes individuals to behave in certain ways. |
“A personality trait is a relatively stable characteristic that causes individuals to behave in certain ways” (Gao & Liu, 2013, p.84). |
| Other teaching faculty see students daily or weekly and therefore have the ability to get to know the students over time (Ha & Verishagen, 2015). | "Other teaching faculty see students daily or weekly and therefore have the ability to get to know the students over time." (Ha & Verishagen, 2015, p.188) |
2. Paraphrasing: Paraphrasing a section of an article
| Original text | Paraphrase and citation |
|
“Effective teachers are adaptable in providing variety in their teaching activities, aiming to match their manipulation of the teaching and learning environment to the needs of the learner” (Mohanna et al., 2007, p. 145).
|
Students appreciate instructors who are adaptable, and those who possess this quality are able to adjust their teaching to meet students’ needs by varying their teaching strategies (Mohanna et al., 2007, p. 145). |
3. Summarizing: Summarizing the main points of an article
| Original text | Summary and Citation |
|
“So what influences which teaching style a teacher adopts? There is some evidence that choice of teaching style is one facet of a teacher’s general view about the purposes of education. We can describe two categories of teachers, formal and informal. Formal teachers see their role in terms of the dominance of outcomes such as examination results, demonstration of predetermined competencies and vocational training. These teachers tend to favour a structured approach. Informal teachers stress learners’ enjoyment of education and opportunities for self-expression and tend to favour discovery learning” (Mohanna et al., 2007, p. 146).
|
According to Mohanna et al. (2007), teaching style can be categorized as either formal or informal, which is connected to a teacher’s philosophy of education. |
References
Note: always check APA formatting. For example, check fonts, punctuation, capitalisation, and hanging indents when copying references.
Gao, M., & Liu, Q. (2013). Personality traits of effective teachers represented in the narratives of American and Chinese preservice teachers: A cross-cultural comparison. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 3(2), 84-95. http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_3_No_2_Special_Issue_January_2013/9.pdf
Ha, C., & Verishagen, N. (2015). Applying Kolb's Learning Theory to library instruction: An observational study. Evidence Based Library and Information Practice, 10(4), 186-199. https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/eblip/index.php/EBLIP/article/view/24924/19321
Differences between Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing
|
Type of Evidence |
Whose ideas? |
Whose words? |
Length of Original |
Do I need to cite? |
|
Quoting |
Author's |
Author's |
100% |
Yes |
|
Paraphrasing |
Author's |
Yours |
70 - 100% |
Yes |
|
Summarizing |
Author's |
Yours |
5 - 30% |
Yes |
Good note-taking skills help you keep your research organized, so you can more easily use it in your paper. In my experience, I have found that good note-taking consists of eliminating function words, using abbreviations, and using graphic organizers. By doing these three things, you significantly can decrease the time you can spend looking for quotations and creating paraphrases from your research. Moreover, your notes will be organized, and therefore locating information should be easier.
There are two kinds of words in a language: content words and function words.
Content words are verbs, adjectives, and nouns, for example. These words are essential to the meaning and should be kept in your notes.
Function words, such as auxiliaries, prepositions, and articles, pronouns, particles and conjunctions carry little meaning of their own so most will not be included in your notes.
Example: The origin of the name America comes from an Italian explorer.
Content: op origin op op name America op from op Italian explorer.
Function: The pling of the pling pling comes from an pling pling.
Example: origin name America: Italian explorer
Abbreviations are shortened forms of words. You can abbreviate words in a number of ways. The easiest way is to use one letter to represent the word. This works best with proper nouns. You should be able to remember the word from one letter only, given the context. For example, on a lecture on planets, you abbreviate one of them using V. Which planet is that?
V – Venus
Another way to abbreviate works best for larger words and consists of taking the first four letters of a multi-syllable word.
Info– Information
One other way to abbreviate larger words is to take the beginning, middle, and end letters of the word. For example:
Mgr– Manager
You can also abbreviate by using symbols, such as the following: $, %, –>, =
i.e: origin – “America” = Italian explorer