Plagiarism and Turnitin
Assignment:
Write a 1-page paper responding to the following questions in your own words:
- What does plagiarism mean to you?
- What are the penalties for academic dishonesty at University?
- What are your own personal reasons for avoiding academic dishonesty?
- What tools are available for you at University to avoid plagiarism?
Read More on Top 10 Free Plagiarism Detection Tools You Need to Know About
Plagiarism
plagiarism (noun):
- A piece of writing that has been copied from someone else and is presented as being your own work.
- The act of plagiarizing; taking someone’s words or ideas as if they were your own.
From this definition of plagiarism, it is quite evident why it cannot be tolerated by the University. Tolerating plagiarism undermines the value of your degree and condones cheating.
Please remember that plagiarism also includes submitting an assignment that has previously been submitted by you in another course and/or facilitating academic dishonesty by making your completed assignments available for another student to copy.
What is Plagiarism?
“In college courses, we are continually engaged with other people’s ideas: we read them in texts, hear them in lectures, discuss them in class, and incorporate them into our own writing.
As a result, it is very important that we give credit where it is due. Plagiarism is using others’ ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information” (Writing Tutorial Services, 2018).
Remember you can commit plagiarism and be found to have violated academic conduct standards even if it was done unintentionally – follow these tips to avoid knowingly or unknowingly committing plagiarism.
To Avoid Plagiarism;
- Use quotations for sentences and phrases taken directly from a source and cite your source!
- Paraphrase ideas a.k.a. put it in your words and cite your sources!
- Check your paraphrase against the original source to ensure you have paraphrased correctly and cite your sources!
You should cite whenever you use…
- another person’s idea, opinion, or theory
- any information – facts, statistics, graphs, drawings, etc. – produced by another that is not common knowledge
- quotations of another person’s spoken or written words
- paraphrase of another person’s spoken or written words
- any images, videos, music, etc. created by another person
Remember you took the time to find the research, read it, and incorporate it into your writing – show that work by citing your sources and avoid plagiarizing at the same time!
What is Paraphrasing?
Paraphrasing is when you present information (ideas, opinions, concepts, theories, facts, etc.) that you found from a source and incorporate that information into your own paper, presentation, or project.
When you paraphrase, you are not just re-arranging the original wording or swapping out a few words with synonyms.
To paraphrase correctly, you should re-write the information in your own words, which requires you to understand that information and connect it with your own ideas and with information from your other sources.
We call this process of understanding and connecting information synthesis. It can be difficult to synthesize information but it is an important part of the research and writing process.
Synthesis strengthens your arguments, positions, research, etc., and helps organize your writing.
To paraphrase correctly, you should…
- Present information accurately. Make sure you have accurately represented and reported the ideas, opinions, facts, etc. of your source
- Use your own words. Don’t just re-arrange words/phrases or swap out words for synonyms. Synthesize the information – connect it to your own ideas, your other sources, your argument/research/etc.
- Give credit to (cite) the original source. Even when paraphrasing, you need to cite the original source because you are not the original creator of that information.
- Questions? Need Writing Help?
Schedule an appointment with a Franklin writing tutor or submit your paper to the Online Writing Review!
Turnitin
Turnitin is the global leader in evaluating and improving student writing. The company’s cloud-based service for originality checking, online grading, and peer review saves instructors time and provides rich feedback to students
On this page, you’ll find everything you need to get started with Turnitin.
Welcome to the Student Resources Hub! This page gathers some of the most useful content available to students using Turnitin.
