Which of the following are plagiarised and which are acceptable?

Underline the key words in the following titles and consider what they are asking you to do.

a) Define information technology (IT) and outline its main applications in medicine.

b) Compare and contrast the appeal process in the legal systems of Britain and the USA.

c) Evaluate the effect of mergers in the motor industry in the last ten years.

d) Trace the development of primary education in one country. Illustrate some of the issues currently facing this sector.

The following terms are also commonly used in essay titles.

Match the terms to the definitions on the right.

Analyze Give a clear and simple account

Describe Make a proposal and support it

Examine Deal with a complex subject by giving the main points

State Divide into sections and discuss each critically

Suggest Give a detailed account

Summarize Look at the various parts and their relationships

Plagiarism

All students have to face the issue of plagiarism. Plagiarism means taking information or ideas from another writer and using them in your own work, without acknowledging the source in an accepted manner. In academic work plagiarism can be a serious offence.

Which of the following would be considered as plagiarism?

a) Not providing a reference when you have used somebody’s idea.

b) Copying a few sentences from an article on the internet without giving a reference.

c) Not giving a reference when you use commonly accepted ideas, e.g. Aids is a growing problem.

d) Giving the reference but not using quotation marks when you take a sentence from another writer’s article.

e) Taking a paragraph from a classmate’s essay without giving a reference.

f) Presenting the results of your own research.

Read the following extract on twentieth-century educational developments from Age of Extremes by E. Hobsbawm:

Almost as dramatic as the decline and fall of the peasantry, and much more universal, was the rise of the occupations which required secondary and higher education. Universal primary education, i.e. basic literacy, was indeed the aspiration of virtually all governments, so much so that by the late 1980s only the most honest or helpless states admitted to having as many as half their population illiterate, and only ten – all but Afghanistan in Africa – were prepared to concede that less than 20% of their population could read or write. (Hobsbawm, 1994, p. 295)

Which of the following are plagiarised and which are acceptable?

a) Almost as dramatic as the decline and fall of the peasantry, and much more general, was the rise of the professions which required secondary and higher education. Primary education for all, i.e. basic literacy, was indeed the aspiration of almost all governments, so much so that by the late 1980s only the most honest countries confessed to having as many as half their population illiterate, and only ten – all but Afghanistan in Africa – were prepared to admit that less than 20% of their population could read or write. (Hobsbawm, 1994, p. 295)

b) Nearly as dramatic as the decline of the peasantry was the rise of professions which required secondary and higher education. Primary education for everyone (basic literacy) was the aspiration of nearly all governments, so that by the late 1980s only the very honest countries confessed to having as many as half their population illiterate. Only ten (African) countries conceded that less than 20% of their population were literate. (Hobsbawm, 1994, p. 295)

c) As Hobsbawm (1994) argues, there was a marked increase in jobs needing secondary or higher education during the twentieth century. All but a few nations claimed that the majority of their people were literate. Universal primary education i.e. basic literacy was indeed the aspiration of virtually all governments. (p. 295)

d) There was a sharp and widespread increase in occupations requiring education above primary level. All governments set out to provide basic education, essentially literacy, for their people. By the end of the 1980s very few states would admit that the majority of their population were unable to read. (Hobsbawm, 1994, p. 295)

Acceptable: some vocabulary kept from original/new sentence structure/use of

summary.

Plagiarized: many phrases retained from original/minor paraphrasing/identical

sentence structure.

Paraphrasing

Paraphrasing involves changing a text so that it is quite different from the source, while retaining the meaning. This skill is important in several areas of academic work, but this unit focuses on using paraphrasing in note-making and summary writing. Effective paraphrasing is vital in academic writing to avoid the risk of plagiarism.

Task 1. Although paraphrasing techniques are used in summary.For example,

Evidence of a lost civilization has been found off the coast of China.

could be paraphrased:

Remains of an ancient society have been discovered in the sea near China.

A good paraphrase is significantly different from the wording of the original, without altering the meaning at all.

Task 2. Read the text below and then decide which is the best paraphrase, (a)

or (b).

Ancient Egypt collapsed in about 2180 BC. Studies conducted of the mud from the River Nile showed that at this time the mountainous regions which feed the Nile suffered from a prolonged drought. This would have had a devastating effect on the ability of Egyptian society to feed itself.

a) The sudden ending of Egyptian civilisation over 4,000 years ago was probably caused by changes in the weather in the region to the south. Without the regular river flooding there would not have been enough food.

b) Research into deposits of the Egyptian Nile indicate that a long dry period in the

mountains at the river’s source may have led to a lack of water for irrigation around 2180BC, which was when the collapse of Egyptian society began.

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