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Social Psychology (PSYC250), Spring 2009 Recognizing and Avoiding Plagiarism
Most students understand that copying another student's paper, or copying large sections of text from a book or internet source, and submitting this as their own work is a form of cheating. Sometimes, however, students plagiarize material without realizing they are doing something wrong. The purpose of this assignment is to help you better understand what plagiarism is and to show you some ways you can avoid it. You are expected to apply what you learn from this assignment to all written work submitted for this course.
WHAT IS PLAGIARISM?
Plagiarism is misrepresenting someone else's writing or ideas as your own. The LHU policy defines plagiarism as follows: "At one extreme end, plagiarism is the word-for-word copying of another's writing without enclosing the copied passage in quotation marks and identifying the proper citation. At the other end of the spectrum, plagiarism is the casual inclusion of a particular idea or term which one has obtained from another's writing or speaking, and which is presented as one's own opinion or idea” (LHU Student Handbook). You can read the complete policy in the LHU Student Handbook.
To avoid plagiarism you must give credit to the source when you use the author’s words (that is, quote), or use the author’s idea, opinion or attitude or use facts or statistics that are not common knowledge (Writing Tutorial Service, 2002)
Examples of Plagiarism and How They Can be Saved The examples that follow will be based on this passage on page 39 of the 9th edition of the text, Social Psychology by David Myers:
ORIGINAL: How do we decide if we are rich, smart, or short? One way is through social comparisons (Festinger, 1954). Others around us help to define the standard by which we define ourselves as rich or poor, smart or dumb, tall or short: We compare ourselves with them and consider how we differ.
PLAGIARIZED VERSION 1: How do we decide if we are rich, smart, or short? We can compare our selves to other people. That is, we can conduct social comparisons. By comparing ourselves to others we can see how we differ.
What is wrong with this version? The plagiarized version makes three mistakes. There are no quotation marks around a direct quote (1st sentence), the last line is very similar in wording and composition to the original, and the source of the information is not acknowledged. Any of these mistakes results in plagiarism. If a direct quote is used it must be enclosed in quotation marks, information should be written in your own words, and the source of the information must be referenced.
PLAGIARIZED VERSION 2: How do we decide if we are rich, smart, or short? We can compare our selves to other people. That is, we can conduct social comparisons. Other people act as yard sticks against which we can measure ourselves (Myers, p. 39).
What is wrong with version 2? This example is better because the source is cited, and the last line is a better paraphrase. However, there are still no quotation marks around the direct quote. The absence of quotation marks around a direct quote makes this plagiarism.
PLAGIARIZED VERSION 3: “How do we decide if we are rich, smart, or short?” We can compare our selves to other people. That is, we can conduct social comparisons. Other people act as yard sticks against which we can measure ourselves.
What is wrong with version 3? This example has the quotation marks that version 2 omitted, but the source of the quote is not cited, thus this is still plagiarism.
CORRECT VERSION 1: “How do we decide if we are rich, smart, or short” (Myers, p. 39)? We can compare our selves to other people. That is, we can conduct social comparisons. Other people act as yard sticks against which we can measure ourselves (Myers, p. 39).
This quote is acceptable because it is enclosed in quotation marks and the source is cited. Note that both the quote and the paraphrased portions are cited. Thus, even if you do not directly quote from a source, but you do use information from a source, you still need to cite the source. The citation is considered to be part of a sentence, so punctuation comes after the citation.
You are only allowed to use 2 quotes per paper for the case study assignments in this course, so when using the textbook as a source of information you'll often need to paraphrase. You should quote only when absolutely necessary.
Also note that the original text cited Festinger (1954) as a source, but the above version only cites Myers. For assignments in this course, I am having you use a modified APA style for citations. Official APA style uses the primary source’s author and the year. You, however, will be required to give the secondary source author’s name (Myers) and the page number. You would not cite Festinger’s work, because you did not read his work directly. What you know about Festinger’s work is based only on what you read in Myers’ text, so you will only cite Myers.
CORRECT VERSION 2: How are we able to judge our abilities and characteristics? We can compare our selves to other people. That is, we can conduct social comparisons. Other people act as yard sticks against which we can measure ourselves (Festinger, 1954 as cited in Myers, p. 39). For example, to decide if I am overweight I might compare myself to my friends. If my friends are heavy, I may perceive myself as being slim. However, if my friends are thin, I may perceive myself as being heavy.
This version is better because unlike the first version, it does not use a direct quote. The whole passage is paraphrased. Your goal should be to paraphrase the information, cite the source, and to avoid using direct quotes.
There are two more differences in this version. First, Festinger is mentioned so he receives credit for the original theory, but the words “as cited in Myers” are included. This tells the reader that you relied on Myers’ summary of Festinger’s work, that you didn’t actually read Festinger’s original writings. In this class I will accept either of the citation forms used in version 1 or version 2. Second, this version includes an example of the concept that I wrote. Thus I put the cite for Myers after the information that comes from his text, but not after my example. This placement of the citation tells the reader what information is based on Myers’ text and what ideas are mine.
PARAPHRASING
Paraphrasing is rewording information from a source into your own words. A good paraphrase communicates the ideas of the original, but uses your own language. Paraphrasing is not just a matter of substituting a few words into the original, or just rearranging words from the original (Scott, Koch, Scott, Garrison, 1999). A paraphrase, because it uses ideas from the source, must give the source credit (Dunn, 1999). Paraphrasing without citing the source is plagiarism (Scott, et al., 1999). Examples of inappropriate and appropriate paraphrases follow.
ORIGINAL: Your self-concept contains not just your personal identity (your sense of your personal attributes) but also your social identity. The social definition of who your are – your race, religion, gender, academic major, and so forth – implies, too, a definition of who you are not.
PLAGIARIZED VERSION 1: Your self-concept contains your personal identity and also your social identity. Your personal identity is your sense of your personal characteristics. Your social identity – your ethnicity, gender, academic major, and so on – also includes a definition of who you are not.
What is wrong with version 1? There are two major mistakes in this example. First, the wording is very similar to the original's wording. A few words have been changed and rearranged, but still closely mimics the original. Second, the source is not referenced.
PLAGIARIZED VERSION 2: Part of your self-concept is your social identity – the social definition of who you are and are not. Your academic major, gender and so forth are part of your social identity. Your sense of your personal identity – your personal attributes – is also contained in your self-concept (Myers, p. 38).
What is wrong with version 2? The source has been referenced, but the wording is still too similar to the original's phrasing. Switching the order of the phrases from the original is not sufficient paraphrasing, thus this is still plagiarism.
CORRECT VERSION 1: Your sense of self is a mix your personal identity and your social identity. Your personal identity includes your perception of your individual traits and characteristics. Your social identity includes the social categories or groups to which you belong “race, religion, gender, academic major, and so forth” (Myers, p. 38).
Most of the passage has been rewritten in the writer's own words. The phrase that comes word for word from the text is appropriately enclosed in quotation marks and the source is cited. The terms personal identity and social identity were not in quotes because those are common terms. There is no limit to the number of paraphrases you can use in a paper as long as the source of the ideas is acknowledged.
CORRECT VERSION 2: What your think or believe about yourself is called your self-concept. Part of your self-concept is a sense of your individual traits and characteristics (Myers, p. 38). For example, if you think you have a good sense of humor. Another part of your self-concept is your social identity (Myers, p. 38). For example, being a member of the field hockey team.
This paraphrase is better than the first, because there are no quotes. Both versions 1 and 2 are acceptable because the writers preserve the meaning of the original and give credit for the ideas in the original (Writing Tutorial Service, 2002). Both either rephrase the ideas in their own words and/or put quotes in quotation marks.
You may have noticed that in version 2 that Myers is cited twice. This is to distinguish between information that is based on Myers’ text, and the writer’s own examples.
At this point you might be thinking "Why should I go to all this trouble rewriting when the original author says it better than I can?" I'll be grading papers assigned in this course based on how well you understand the information from text and lecture, and how well you apply the information. A paper that consists of a string of quotations doesn't reflect your understanding. You need to demonstrate your understanding of the material by explaining it in your own words. Paraphrasing actually increases your understanding of the information. By forcing yourself to restate the idea in your own words you'll have to really think about the meaning of the information (Scott et al., 1999). One strategy you can try when paraphrasing is to read the relevant information in the text, and then cover the page or close the book. If you can't see the page, you'll be less likely to copy from it. Then try to write, in your own words, the ideas you just read (Writing Tutorial Service, 2002). Finally go back to the original and check your version against the original for possible plagiarism. If there is a distinctive phrase from the original that cannot be changed, put the phrase in quotation marks (Writing Center, 2003).
Does paraphrasing require you to change every word from the original? No. Sometimes it is unnecessary or even inappropriate to change every word. For example, some terms might be commonly used in psychology to express certain concepts (e.g., experiment, self-concept). Such key terms have very specific meanings and changing them may just confuse the reader. Because many of these terms (e.g., self-schema, groupthink) are not commonly known, these terms should be explained when you use them and referenced the first time you use them (Nye, 2000).
COMMON KNOWLEDGE EXCEPTION
If a fact or term is common knowledge you can use it without using quotation marks and without citing a reference. Common knowledge is "facts that can be found in numerous places and likely to be known by a lot of people" (Writing Tutorial Service, 2002, p. 3). This definition still leaves some gray areas. I suspect that most of the theories and concepts used in the textbook will be new to you, or will have a specialized meaning in social psychology (e.g., self-schema, cognitive dissonance, Schachter's theory of emotion). Thus, these cannot be considered common knowledge and you must give credit to the textbook or lecture where you learned about these ideas. There are other terms and ideas in the text, however that may be more familiar to you (e.g., self-esteem, experiment, and independent variable). Do these ideas have to be referenced? For the purposes of this course I want you to follow this rule of thumb: If you had to refer to the text or lecture to fully define or explain such terms, then you should acknowledge the source by citing the text or lecture. That is, if these words are not part of your everyday working vocabulary, then you need to cite the source. If they are part of your working vocabulary, then please let me know. I do not want to falsely accuse you of plagiarism. You can let me know by including a note at the beginning of your homework assignments such as, "Dr. Boland, I have taken several psychology courses including Psychological Methods. Because of this background I am very familiar with the terms about research methods.” If you're in doubt about whether or not you need to cite a source or use quotation marks, just run it by me. For more information about plagiarism and how to avoid it, check out these web sites http://www.lhup.edu/English/writingcenter/Writing%20Center%20Home%20Page.htm http://bluehawk.monmouth.edu/~psych/conducting-research/plagiarism.html http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html
References
Dunn, D. S. (1999). The practical researcher: A student guide to conducting psychological research. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill. Lock Haven University (1995). Academic honesty policy and procedure. In Academic policies and procedures handbook (Spring, 2000). Myers, D.G. (2008). Social Psychology (9th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill. Nye, J.L. (2000). Avoiding plagiarism in psychological writing. Retrieved July 30, 2002, from Monmouth University, Department of Psychology Web site: http://bluehawk.monmouth.edu/~psych/conducting-research/plagiarism.html. Scott, J. M., Koch, R.E., Scott, G.M., & Garrison, S.M. (1999). The psychology student writer's manual. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Writing Center. Plagiarism and ways to avoid it. Retrieved August 20, 2003 from Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, PA, Writing Center Web site: http://www.lhup.edu/English/writingcenter/Writing%20Center%20Home%20Page.htm. Writing Tutorial Services. Plagiarism: What it is and how to recognize and avoid it. Retrieved July 30, 2002 from Indiana University, Bloomington IN, Writing Tutorial Services Web site: http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html.
Name _________________________________
Plagiarism Exercise (10 points)Psyc250, Social Psychology 1) Recognizing Plagiarism (5 points) Compare the original passage from page 410 of the Myers’ text with the three versions that follow it. Two shows signs of plagiarism, while one is an acceptable paraphrase. Identify each as either plagiarized or acceptable. For the two that illustrate unacceptable plagiarism, describe the form the plagiarism takes, (e.g., first sentence contains a quote, source is not cited). The passages may make more than one mistake -- identify all mistakes made. ORIGINAL: Although passionate love burns hot, it inevitably simmers down. The longer a relationship endures, the fewer its emotional of ups and downs. The high of romance may be sustained for a few months, even a couple of years. But no high lasts forever. VERSION A: Passionate love first burns hot, but inevitably simmers down. The high of romance can’t last forever. After a few months, or even a couple of years, a relationship has fewer emotional ups and downs. Plagiarized Acceptable (circle one) If you circled plagiarized, explain what mistake(s) was (were) made by the writer. ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ VERSION B: At the beginning of a romantic relationship, one experiences the heat of passion. Eventually, however, the passion cools. After a time, the highs are not as high, and the lows are not as low (Myers, p. 410). Plagiarized Acceptable (circle one) If you circled plagiarized, explain what mistake(s) was (were) made by the writer. ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________
ORIGINAL: Although passionate love burns hot, it inevitably simmers down. The longer a relationship endures, the fewer its emotional of ups and downs. The high of romance may be sustained for a few months, even a couple of years. But no high lasts forever. VERSION C: The high of passionate love does not last forever. The longer a relationship is the fewer ups and downs there are. The high of passionate love may last a few months, even a couple of years, but inevitably simmers down (Myers, p. 410). Plagiarized Acceptable (circle one) ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________
2) Fix the Plagiarism (3 points) The original passage from page 389 has been plagiarized. First, explain why this is an example of plagiarism. Second, write your own paraphrase that is NOT plagiarism, i.e., rewrite the original in your own words. Your answer must be in the form of a paraphrase -- turning it into a direct quote is not an acceptable fix for this exercise. Don’t forget the rules about citing the source. ORIGINAL: We even like ourselves better when we are the way we’re used to seeing ourselves. In a delightful experiment, Theodore Mita, Marshall Dermer, and Jeffery Knight (1974) photographed women students at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and later showed each one her actual picture along with a mirror image of it. Asked which picture they liked better, most preferred the mirror image – the image they were used to seeing. PLAGIARIZED VERSION: In a delightful experiment at the Univeristy of Wisconsin, experimenters photographed women. Later each woman was shown a mirror image of her picture, along with the actual picture. Most preferred the mirror image – the image they were used to seeing – when asked which picture they preferred (Myers, p. 389). What’s wrong with the plagiarized version? (1 point) __________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________ Your paraphrase (2 points):_______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ 3) Practicing Paraphrasing (2 points) Here is a passage from page 391 of your textbook, Social Psychology by Myers. Paraphrase this passage. ORIGINAL: Experiments confirm this matching phenomenon. When choosing whom to approach, knowing the other is free to say yes or no, people often approach someone whose attractiveness roughly matches (or not too greatly exceeds) their own. Your paraphrase:________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ |
