Course Description |
Class Syllabus |
CA's University Classes
Exercise on Plagiarism
Original text:
"The second problem would have guaranteed the failure of the new math even if the first problem had not existed. The overwhelming majority of elementary school teachers have had inadequate training in mathematics, and thus did not understand what they were expected to teach. A program that attempts to transmit knowledge not possessed by the teacher is doomed to fail. As this fact became clear to curriculum directors and textbook publishers across the country, they compounded their error by attempting to make the new math teacher-proof. This involved developing self-explanatory materials and mechanical, repetitive techniques which were based on underlying mathematical principles. Unfortunately, the new techniques were far more complicated than the old ones had been, the teachers still didn't understand what was going on, and an entire generation did not learn how to compute." (From Copperman, P., The Literacy Hoax, Times: Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1980, p. 65.)
Examples of Plagiarism
Possible uses of the original text:
EXAMPLE 1
- PLAGIARISM:
A program that attempts to transmit knowledge not possessed by the teacher is doomed to fail.
- NOT PLAGIARISM:
"A program that attempts to transmit knowledge not possessed by the teacher is doomed to fail."
(The quotation marks make this an acceptable use of the original.)
EXAMPLE 2
- PLAGIARISM:
A course that attempts to transmit knowledge not possessed by the teacher will never succeed.
(This is patchwork plagiarism; a few words are paraphrased, but most are from the original and the sentence structure is also from the original.)
- NOT PLAGIARISM:
A course "that attempts to transmit knowledge not possessed by the teacher" will never succeed.
(The quotation marks around words from the original make this acceptable.)
EXAMPLE 3
A course that tries to convey understanding not held by the teacher is fated to be unsuccessful.
(This is plagiarism because the original sentence structure has been kept, even though the writer has used synonyms to replace most words.)
NOT PLAGIARISM:
If the instructor does not have the knowledge that the student is meant to learn from a course, then the course will never succeed.
(This is acceptable because it is a full paraphrase, with original words and sentence structure changed, of an idea that is common knowledge in the field of education.)
EXAMPLE 4
- PLAGIARISM:
Without the first problem, the second one would still have been enough to stop the new math from working.
(Even though this is a full paraphrase, it is plagiarism of the author's idea from the first sentence of the extract, because the idea is not common knowledge in the field of math education.)
- NOT PLAGIARISM:
Copperman (1980, p. 65) claims that, without the first problem, the second one would still have been enough to stop the new math from working.
(This is acceptable because it is a full paraphrase and the author's own idea has been clearly attributed to him.)
NOT PLAGIARISM:
Without the first problem, the second one would still have been enough to stop the new math from working (Copperman, 1980, p. 65).
(This is acceptable because it is a full paraphrase and the author's own idea has been clearly attributed to him.)
Exercise in Identifying Plagiarism
The extract below is followed by some possible uses that could be made of it. For each use, state whether or not it is plagiarism and give a reason for your decision.
"An even better case can be made that the new English curriculum has directly caused a deterioration in the writing skills of American students. Writing instruction in the early 1960s tended to be rather mechanical. Teachers focused on such aspects of the writing art as grammar, punctuation, syntax, and spelling. This type of instruction was fiercely criticized in the late 1960s as stifling creativity and fostering an imitative kind of writing. In my opinion, some of the criticism was well-founded, especially for bright students, but as usual the baby went out with the bath water." (From Copperman, P., The Literacy Hoax, Times: Morrow Quill Paperbacks, 1980, p. 100.)
Possible uses of the original text:
- ". . . the new English curriculum has directly caused a deterioration in the writing skills of American students."
- "Teachers focused on such aspects of the writing art as grammar, punctuation, syntax, and spelling.
- Instructors concentrated on such parts of the skill of written composition as "grammar, punctuation, syntax, and spelling."
- A mechanical approach dominated the teaching of composition in the first years of the 1960s.
- Copperman (1980) asserts that some of the criticism of early 1960s writing instruction was justified, especially in the case of intelligent students, and that what was good was thrown out with what was bad: ". . . the baby went out with the bath water."
- This type of instruction was fiercely criticized in the late 1960s as stifling creativity and fostering an imitative kind of writing.
- During the later years of the 1960s, two strong criticisms were made of such teaching of writing: first, that the students could not be creative and, second, that only imitative writing was encouraged.
- One view (Copperman, 1980) is that, although there was good evidence to support some of the critical judgments, the effective aspects of instruction were given up together with the ineffective.
Exercise from Menasche, Lionel, Writing a Research Paper,
Pittsburgh University Press, 1984, pp. 38-41.
C.A. Edington, Instructor
Sapporo University Academic Writing