Essays, Ethics And The 'p'-word
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What is considered plagiarism?
- 1.In preparing your essay you read a Wikipedia article for an overview of the topic. You don't end up directly using any quotes or facts from the article in your final essay but the article did help you understand the topic. Do you need to add a reference for the Wikipedia article in your bibliography?
- A.
Yes
- B.
No
- C.
Maybe
- D.
No Idea
- 2.Your friend is stuck on how to start her essay so you email her your draft to read and to help her, after all, she's getting desperate and the essay is due tomorrow! When your lecturer reads your two essays she notices that both of your introductory paragraphs are really similar. Are you both in trouble or just your friend?
- A.
Just your friend is in trouble
- B.
You both are
- C.
Your lecturer is just being picky
- 3.You photocopied a whole bunch of pages from a magazine at the library and forgot to write down the reference or you lost it somewhere in the studio! It's now the night before the essay is due and the library is long closed. Can you just submit the essay without that one reference?
- A.
Yes, the lecturer will never notice so its okay
- B.
No, I don't think that's a good idea
- C.
Avoid the problem for the next 2 hours and watch videos on YouTube
- 4.You saved about 100 pictures of Fallingwater for your essay and now you can't remember which websites you took the pictures from. But that's okay because pictures don't have to be referenced right?
- A.
Right
- B.
Wrong
- C.
Not sure
- 5.You and your 2 good friends worked on your essays together. You shared the same books, magazines and websites to prepare your essays. You even shared your Pocky and Hello Panda. Your three essays sound really similar, but you all wrote your essays individually. Is this considered plagiarism?
- A.
Yes, your essays are really similar
- B.
Yes, you used the same sources to write
- C.
No, I didn't eat the Strawberry Pocky
- D.
No, we each wrote our own essays so its okay
- 6.I forgot about the essay until the last minute so I decided to get all resourceful and collaborative. I posted up my essay topic on answers.com or on a forum and some dude at UCLA replied with some good ideas. I don't need to write a footnote for that do I? I just asked another student some questions.
- A.
Yes I do
- B.
No I don't
- C.
Maybe, I'm not sure
- 7.You come across an excellent summary of what you want to say about your essay topic. Its so good its like the author read your mind. You don't want to add a lengthy quote in your essay so you paraphrase the passage, changing a few words here and there. You add a footnote to reference the source you took. Do you need to put quotation marks around the paraphrased passage?
- A.
No, because its not a quote
- B.
Yes, because you only changed a few words
- 8.In preparing your essay you find one book that says everything that you need. Should you look for more sources?
- A.
Yes, one is not sufficient
- B.
No, one excellent source is enough
- C.
No, I can't be bothered
- 9.One of your friends tells you that her older brother helped her to write her essay because she is not very good at writing. Is this considered cheating?
- A.
Yes, you should always write your own essays
- B.
No, its fine to get help
- C.
Maybe
- 10.The essay questions are released and you immediately know what topic you want to do. You aren't heading straight home tonight, so you 'reshelve' the best books at the library so no one else borrows them before you can pick them up the next day. Is this okay?
- A.
Yes, I'm borrowing them tomorrow
- B.
No, its not fair to my classmates
- 11.This year's essay topic has some overlap with last years. Is it okay to re-use some of your essay material from last year in this year's essay?
- A.
Yes, its my own words
- B.
Yes, I'll be adding new sources and lots of new material
- C.
No, its not okay to re-use
- 12.Some information for your essay is very basic biographical data about the artist you are writing about, so you just copy and paste 3 sentences from a website which nicely summarise his life. Is this okay?
- A.
Yes, if it is just basic information
- B.
No, you can't just copy and paste
- 13.You do most of your research on chinese or other non-english websites. In writing your essay you do your own translation into english of the quotes you need. Do you need to put quotation marks around the quotes if you have rewritten them through translation?
- A.
No, its now your own words
- B.
Yes, its still a quote
- C.
No, its considered paraphrasing
- 14.You fall sick with the nastiest flu and highest fever you have ever had just one week before your essay is due. You go see the doctor and get a 5 day MC. After you get better you realise that you can't complete your essay on time, so you alter the date on your MC to include the day of essay submission. Is this acceptable?
- A.
Yes, I was really sick
- B.
No, you should never change an MC
- 15.You make a very thorough set of endnotes and a bibliography but forget to print them out. You submit your essay anyway without the endnotes and bibliography. Is this considered plagiarism?
- A.
Yes, because there are no references
- B.
No, because you did do them, you just forgot
- 16.In researching Russia in the 19th century, you read widely and thoroughly. When you write your essay you carefully indicate all your quotes with quotation marks and provide a detailed bibliography at the end your essay. However, you don't have any footnotes, endnotes or in-text citations. Is this considered plagiarism?
- A.
Yes, because you have no footnotes, endnotes or in-text citations
- B.
No, because you have a bibliography
- 17.I really like photography, so for my essay on Singapore I went around taking pictures of HDB flats and other relevant buildings. The images are all my own originals so I don't need to reference them right?
- A.
Right, the images belong to me
- B.
Wrong, I should credit myself
- C.
Both of the above
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