Intern’s Corner: Only You Can Prevent Plagiarism I

As I mentioned in the quotation blog post, Quote Your Quotes, plagiarism is serious, but you do not have to take my word for it. The Excelsior Online Writing Lab has several tutorials dedicated to plagiarism, offering students knowledge they can use in avoiding plagiarism. These tutorials help students understand what plagiarism is and isn’t, as well as providing examples and helpful advice.

In this blog entry, I will discuss with you How to Avoid Plagiarism,  Common Knowledge & Plagiarism, and Check Your Understanding of Plagiarism. The next segment, Only You Can Prevent Plagiarism II, will cover the tutorials Summarizing & Plagiarism, Note-Taking & Plagiarism, and Paraphrasing & Plagiarism.

How to Avoid Plagiarism

 

(Screenshot of OWL’s How to Avoid Plagiarism tutorial)

 

The OWL provides a video under the tutorial How to Avoid Plagiarism. During the video, you will see a student and teacher engaged in a conversation regarding plagiarism. The student is calling the teacher to ask why she received a failing grade. The professor mentions Turnitin and how the student had a 41% match with other papers with internet sources. The video provides examples of how students can avoid plagiarizing, as well as some of the ramifications when a student plagiarizes, such as rewriting the paper or expulsion from the institution.

The next page of the tutorial is How to Cite Sources. This page provides quick tips regarding direct quotations, method of citation, and style of citation. As always, make sure to read your syllabus or ask your teacher which style you are to use.

Last in this tutorial is the Try It Out interactive activity. During this activity, you are meant to read the text and see how well a student cites the source.

 

(Screenshot of slide 2 of Try It Out regarding Hot to Avoid Plagiarism)

Screenshot of slide 2 of Try It Out regarding Hot to Avoid Plagiarism.

Common Knowledge & Plagiarism

The next tutorial, Common Knowledge & Plagiarism is helpful because some people, including myself, have a difficult time deciding what is common knowledge and what is not. This tutorial offers useful examples of common knowledge but states what might be common knowledge in one field may not be known by the general public. If you are unsure, it is best to cite.

The OWL offers a Try It Out tutorial regarding common knowledge. This tutorial offers information, and you are asked to decide if it is common knowledge or not. Give the tutorial a try and see if it can stump you.

Check Your Understanding of Plagiarism

The tutorial Check Your Understanding of Plagiarism is a 15-question true-or-false activity to test what you have learned about plagiarism. For more helpful resources on how to avoid plagiarism, check out the OWL’s Plagiarism: Additional Resources.

(Screenshot of slide 6 of Check Your Understanding of Plagiarism True or False questionnaire)

Screenshot of OWL’s How to Avoid Plagiarism tutorial.

Sequel

Come back next week for the sequel Only You Can Prevent Plagiarism II, where I look at the other tutorials offered by the OWL regarding plagiarism: Summarizing & Plagiarism, Note-Taking & Plagiarism, and Paraphrasing & Plagiarism.

 

Ginger Hamblin is an intern for the Excelsior University Online Writing Lab. She has been a student of Excelsior University for almost two years and is pursuing her Bachelor of Science – Liberal Arts in Professional and Technical Writing. She is a writing enthusiast, painter, wife, and mother of three boys.