Your Research Library at
Lyon College

COR100 LIT: Chapter 7
Avoiding Plagiarism and Learning How to Cite

Lyon College
Mabee-Simpson Library
Week 7, exam by Midnight, Sunday, Oct 6, 2005

Plagiarism

For the quiz, know what plagiarism is and what happens if you are caught plagiarizing at Lyon College.

Using another person’s ideas or expressions in your writing without acknowledging the source is plagiarism. If you are caught plagiarizing here's what happens:

You go before the Honor Council, which is a group of your fellow students; your peers, and you have some choices.

One choice is expulsion. That means you leave and never come back to Lyon.
The second choice is suspension. This means you have to leave the campus
for a specified time.
The third choice is probation. That means an F on your assignment or the course. There may be meetings with faculty until they are assured you know how to cite.

Examples of Plagiarism

It's easy to cut and paste any Google search and not document the source.
There are thousands of "public domain" electronic books out there you can use and not document your sources.
And of course there's the websites that post free student papers.
And there's the websites that sell student papers.
And of course you can pay someone to write the paper for you.

All these are examples of plagiarism. All of these involve data that was not documented. Paper copy is also included in this. Always document your sources. When you copy and paste something, remember to copy and paste the bibliography as well. Tack it onto your notes and you'll be fine.

Faculty familiarize themselves with your writing style. If they see some Ph.D paragraphs in your paper, they will get suspicious, especially if you are a freshman. They also know how to "Google" and they are using some pretty sophisticated "sniffing" packages to search for potential plagiarizing.

Cite, cite, cite, all your sources.

How To Avoid It

Don't take shortcuts. The old standard of allowing twice as much time to research as you think you'll need is still a good one.
Show your professor a rough draft of your paper before you've even pledged it.
Write your paper in your own words.
Cite your sources.

For the quiz, remember the points above.

Cite Your Sources

You'll be asked to pick the proper citation for journal and
book entries on your quiz.

Concentrate on how to cite so you won't get into trouble in the first place. We have an excellent link that will help you figure out how to cite your paper. It's on the library's home page and is called: Citing. It's published by Duke University

Click on the following links and get familiar with these pages. You'll use them to answer questions on your quiz. Citing Sources Within Your Paper, and Assembling a List of Works Cited.

An Example of Citing Using the MLA

The following paragraph is what I would write within my paper about plagiarism. Notice the parenthetical reference at the end.

"Writers can fall into plagiarism more easily than most realize. They recognize that claiming credit for another’s writing is plagiarism; indeed, such dishonesty is the blatant form of plagiarism. But writers have a harder time recognizing the more subtle forms of plagiarism—failure to document the use of words or of data developed by others and failure to acknowledge the ideas, opinions, and conclusions of others even when paraphrased rather than quoted. Researchers expect to use the work of others in their own writing, but they hold themselves to strict professional standards in the use of quotation marks, parenthetical citations and footnotes, and other established means of identifying the sources of the ideas they are blending with their own. " (Lyon College Student Handbook 2004-2005)

Here's the citation that I would put in my bibliography list at the end of my paper:

Lyon College. Lyon College Student Handbook 2004-2005. Arkansas: Lyon College,

2004. Mabee-Simpson Library, Batesville, AR. 5 May, 2005

<http://www.lyon.edu/webdata/groups/stulife/stuhandbook.htm#honor>

Style Manuals

If the Duke site is confusing, try Googling the online manuals. The major ones are listed below. We also have the print copies in the library.

MLA Style Manual

Turabian

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association-

Chicago Manual of Style

Quiz Hints

Some of quiz 7 will be about picking the correct Turabian and MLA styles for citations. It's open book of course, so you can go to these links that I've listed above, and figure it out. I'll even ask you to pick out the call numbers of the style manuals in the library from a multiple choice list.

Front desk (870) 698-4205
Inter-library Loan (870) 698-1744
Last Maintenance: Aug 07, 2006

Your Research Library at Lyon College

COR100 LIT: Chapter 7 Avoiding Plagiarism and Learning How to Cite

Lyon College Mabee-Simpson Library Week 7, exam by Midnight, Sunday, Oct 6, 2005