Name: Irwing Rodrguez Molina

The Perils of Plagiarism

To answer these questions, please read the information on this web page:
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html
The questions will proceed chronologically through the website. In other words, you will find answers to
the first questions at the beginning of the website, and later questions near the end.
1. How does this web page define plagiarism?
The usage of words or ideas, intentional or unintentional from other people without the proper citation.
2.

Look at Actions that might be seen as plagiarism. In your own words, please explain the difference
between Deliberate plagiarism and Possibly accidental plagiarism.
Deliberate is when you completely know that a work, idea, sentence etc. is not yours but you use it in a
paper/book anyways without proper citation.
Accidental is when you think about something and write it, but you did not know that that idea was already
taken, or a sentence was already said.
3.

You are a high school teacher. You discover that a student plagiarized material as part of an important
report. When confronted with the situation, the student says, But it was an accident! I didnt mean to
plagiarize! What would you tell the student?
It would heavily depend on the things/ideas/phrases he plagiarized, if the resemblance is too uncanny, I
would tell him that he plagiarized and that he will receive the proper punishment, whereas, if the
plagiarism is small and unnoticeable, I would let him explain his situation, and might consider to spare his
soul.
Look carefully at Choosing when to credit. Put a check mark next to all of the texts for which you
MUST document their source.
4. _____ words from a commonly known prayer
5. ____words from a new song
6. ____reprinted diagrams
7. _____common knowledge
8. ____your own observations based on anothers research
9. ____a unique phrase you found on the internet that expresses your ideas
10. _____ your own opinions
11. ____ text from a newspaper
12. _____ Just a few words (less than 5) that someone else wrote
* For lack of a check mark
Look carefully at Making sure you are safe. Write down five things that you can do to avoid problems
with plagiarism.
13. When you take notes be sure to mark the quotes and your own ideas, be it by highlighting a capital Q
for quotes or any other differentiation methods.
14. When you quote a small phrase, be sure to mark it with quotation marks
15. When you quote a big paragraph be sure so separate it from the rest of you text
16. Keep authors name close to the citation
17. Name the original author of the idea you are writing about and just quote small parts, for quoting
paragraphs will reduce your credibility
18.25. Please complete Exercises for practice on the next page.

Exercises for Practice

Below are some situations in which writers need to decide whether or not they are running the risk of
plagiarizing. In the Y/N column, indicate if you would need to document (Yes), or if it is not necessary to
provide quotation marks or a citation (No). If you do need to give the source credit in some way, explain
how you would handle it. If not, explain why.
Y/N
If yes, what do you do? If no, why?

Situation

1. You are writing new insights about your own

experiences.

Is something that happened to you, you are the

inventor, thus, the rights of the papers belong
to you.

2. You are using an editorial from your school's

newspaper with which you disagree.

You did not write the original paper, thus, you

have to cite the original newspaper and quote
it correctly.

3. You use some information from a source

without ever quoting it directly.

The work is not yours, if you do not quote,

you are saying that you made all the research,
which would be plagiarism.

4. You have no other way of expressing the exact Y

meaning of a text without using the original
source verbatim.

You should use quotation marks, and cite the

original author, for the work is more than 5
words long, and is not yours.

5. You mention that many people in your

discipline belong to a certain organization.

Is something informative that no one before

has written.

6. You want to begin your paper with a story that Y

one of your classmates told about her
experiences in Bosnia.
7. The quote you want to use is too long, so you Y
leave out a couple of phrases.

Completely quote the story, and cite your

classmate

8. You really like the particular phrase somebody Y

else made up, so you use it.

You quote it normally, and cite the author.

You quote regularly and use ellipsis point ()

to indicate the missing information.