Plagiarism: Definition, Examples, Consequences

Includes information on citing references using APA format

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SVU Policy

The University subscribes to relevant portions of the California Administrative Code as it applies to the California State University system. Inappropriate conduct by students or by applicants for admission is subject to discipline …

41301: Expulsion, Suspension and Probation of Students –

(a) Cheating or plagiarism in connection with an academic program.

“Silicon Valley University Student Handbook 2009-2010.”

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What is Plagiarism?

Plagiarize:

to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own

to use (another's production) without crediting the source to commit literary theft to present as new and original an idea or product derived

from an existing source.

In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.

“What is Plagiarism?” Available at: www.plagiarism.com. Accessed 25 January 2010. (Website quoted the Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

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Paraphrasing and Plagiarism

When is Paraphrasing Plagiarism? Writers commit plagiarism every time they reword sources without

crediting original authors or fail to reference their sources appropriately

The writer may choose to substitute some words from the original with different vocabulary, rearrange words, or rearrange the whole paragraph. In this way, he or she presents stolen information expressing it with his or her own words

When is Paraphrasing NOT Plagiarism? Writers can paraphrase excerpts from other sources as much as they

want - provided the actual source is fully acknowledged

In summary, source text should be either quoted in accordance with the original or entirely rewritten.

Przybyla, Daria. “Is Paraphrasing Plagiarism?” Available at: http://academicwriting.suite101.com/article.cfm/is_paraphrasing_plagiarism. Accessed 25 January 2010.

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Types of Plagiarism

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

turning in someone else's work as your own

copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit

failing to put a quotation in quotation marks

giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation

changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit

copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)

“What is Plagiarism?” Available at: www.plagiarism.com. Accessed 25 January 2010.

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Examples of PlagiarismOriginal source (text), from Alvin Kernan, The Playwright as Magician. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. pp. 102–103:

From time to time this submerged or latent theater in Hamlet becomes almost overt. It is close to the surface in Hamlet’s pretense of madness, the “antic disposition” he puts on to protect himself and prevent his antagonists from plucking out the heart of his mystery. It is even closer to the surface when Hamlet enters his mother’s room and holds up, side by side, the pictures of the two kings, Old Hamlet and Claudius, and proceeds to describe for her the true nature of the choice she has made, presenting truth by means of a show. Similarly, when he leaps into the open grave at Ophelia’s funeral, ranting in high heroic terms, he is acting out for Laertes, and perhaps for himself as well, the folly of excessive, melodramatic expressions of grief.

Lifting selected passages and phrases without proper acknowledgment (lifted passages are underlined):

Almost all of Shakespeare’s Hamlet can be understood as a play about acting and the theater. For example, in Act 1, Hamlet adopts a pretense of madness that he uses to protect himself and prevent his antagonists from discovering his mission to revenge his father’s murder. He also presents truth by means of a show when he compares the portraits of Gertrude’s two husbands in order to describe for her the true nature of the choice she has made. And when he leaps in Ophelia’s open grave ranting in high heroic terms, Hamlet is acting out the folly of excessive, melodramatic expressions of grief.

Princeton University. “Examples of Plagiarism.” Available at: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/08/plagiarism/. Accessed 25 January 2010.

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Examples of Plagiarism (Cont’d.)

Original source (text), from Alvin Kernan, The Playwright as Magician. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979. pp. 102–103:

From time to time this submerged or latent theater in Hamlet becomes almost overt. It is close to the surface in Hamlet’s pretense of madness, the “antic disposition” he puts on to protect himself and prevent his antagonists from plucking out the heart of his mystery. It is even closer to the surface when Hamlet enters his mother’s room and holds up, side by side, the pictures of the two kings, Old Hamlet and Claudius, and proceeds to describe for her the true nature of the choice she has made, presenting truth by means of a show. Similarly, when he leaps into the open grave at Ophelia’s funeral, ranting in high heroic terms, he is acting out for Laertes, and perhaps for himself as well, the folly of excessive, melodramatic expressions of grief.

Paraphrasing the text while maintaining the basic paragraph and sentence structure:

Almost all of Shakespeare’s Hamlet can be understood as a play about acting and the theater. For example, in Act 1, Hamlet pretends to be insane in order to make sure his enemies do not discover his mission to revenge his father’s murder. The theme is even more obvious when Hamlet compares the pictures of his mother’s two husbands to show her what a bad choice she has made, using their images to reveal the truth. Also, when he jumps into Ophelia’s grave, hurling his challenge to Laertes, Hamlet demonstrates the foolishness of exaggerated expressions of emotion.

Princeton University. “Examples of Plagiarism.” Available at: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/08/plagiarism/. Accessed 25 January 2010.

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Example of Correctly Referencing SourcesAccording to Ray Stata of Analog Devices (quoted in Senge, 1990), “the rate at which organizations learn may become the only sustainable competitive advantage.” Revans (1983) devised an equation to explain this phenomenon: L > EC. He indicates that organisational learning is the only way organisations adapt to changes around them, and that the learning (L) must be equal to or greater than the environmental change (EC), or the organisation will die.

Many authors explain that the characteristics of a learning organisation lead to high performance (Argyris and Schön, 1978; Garvin, 1993). According to Ford (1991):

“A learning enterprise is one where individuals, teams and the enterprise itself are continually learning… In a world characterised by multi-dimensional and often multi-directional changes, the long-term survival of enterprises is increasingly dependent on their ability to learn.”

Much has been written on what a learning organisation looks like (Senge, 1990 and 1994; Argyris and Schön, 1978; Easterby-Smith, 1997; Jones and Hendry, 1992). There is also substantial literature describing the need for a shift to a learning organisation (Saban et. al., 2000; Flood and Romm, 1996; Senge, 1990 and 1994).

However, little has been written on how to make such a change, and there aren’t many demonstrable successes (Crossan and Guatto, 1996; Roth and Kleiner, 1995; Smith and Tosey, 1999). In addition, there has been little information in the literature on how to measure progress towards developing a learning organisation, which is hindering its implementation (Goh and Richards, 1997).

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Bibliography for the Previous ExampleArgyris, C. and Schön, D. (1978). Organizational learning: A theory of action perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Crossan, M. and Guatto, T. (1996). Organizational learning research profile. Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 107-112.

Easterby-Smith, M. (1997). Disciplines of organisational learning: contributions and critiques” Human Relations, Vol. 50 No. 9, pp. 1085-1113.

Flood, R. and Romm, N. (1996). Contours of diversity management and triple loop learning” Kybernetes, Vol. 25 No. 7/8, pp. 154-163.

Ford, B. (1991). The learning enterprise: integrating total quality management and workplace reform and renewal. In Proceedings of the Total Quality Management Institute Second National Conference , 21-23 August 1991. Melbourne, Australia: World Congress Centre.

Garvin, D.A. (1993). Building a learning organization. Harvard Business Review, Vol. 71 No. 4, pp. 78-91.

Goh, S.C. and Richards, G. (1997). Benchmarking the learning capability of organizations. European Management Journal, Vol. 15 No. 5, pp. 575-583.

Jones, A. and Hendry, C. (1992), The Learning Organization: A Review of Literature and Practice. London: The HRD Partnership.

Revans, R. (1983). ABC of action learning. London: Lemos and Crane.

Roth, G. and Kleiner, A. (1995). Learning about organizational learning: Creating a learning history. Cambridge, MA: MIT Center for Organizational Learning.

Saban, K., Lanasa, J., Lackman, C., and Peace, G. (2000). Organizational learning: a critical component to new product development. Journal of Product and Brand Management, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 99-199.

Senge, P. (1990). The fifth discipline: The art and practice of the learning organization, New York: Doubleday.

Senge, P. (1994). The fifth discipline fieldbook. New York: Doubleday.

Smith, P.A.C. and Tosey, P. (1999). Assessing the learning organization – part 1: theoretical foundations. The Learning Organization, Vol. 6 No. 2, pp. 70-75.

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How to Correctly Cite References

There are several acceptable standards for citing references, which are maintained by various groups:

APA: psychology, education, and other social sciences

MLA: literature, arts, and humanities

AMA: medicine, health, and biological sciences

Turabian: designed for college students to use with all subjects

Chicago: used with all subjects in the "real world" by books, magazines, newspapers, and other non-scholarly publications

As business is in the social sciences, this class will follow the APA format

The previous bibliography used a modification of the APA format accepted in the UK, as it was from my UK thesis

The next few pages cover the critical aspects of the APA format, with examples

APA Format for Citing References

BA 553: Business Process Management

Works by a single authorThe last name of the author and the year of publication are inserted in the text at the appropriate point.

from theory on bounded rationality (Simon, 1945) If the name of the author or the date appear as part of the narrative, cite only missing information in parentheses.

Simon (1945) posited that OR Research in 1945 (Simon) showed

Works by multiple authorsWhen a work has two authors, always cite both names every time the reference occurs in the text. In parenthetical material join the names with an ampersand (&).

as has been shown (Leiter & Maslach, 1998) In the narrative text, join the names with the word "and."

as Leiter and Maslach (1998) demonstratedWhen a work has three, four, or five authors, cite all authors the first time the reference occurs.

Kahneman, Knetsch, and Thaler (1991) foundIn all subsequent citations per paragraph, include only the surname of the first author followed by "et al." (Latin for "and others") and the year of publication.

Kahneman et al. (1991) found

Works by associations, corporations, government agencies, etc.The names of groups that serve as authors (corporate authors) are usually written out each time they appear in a text reference.

(National Institute of Mental Health [NIMH], 2007)When appropriate, the names of some corporate authors are spelled out in the first reference and abbreviated in all subsequent citations. The general rule for abbreviating in this manner is to supply enough information in the text citation for a reader to locate its source in the Reference List without difficulty.

(NIMH, 2007)

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http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/apa Accessed 8 January 2012.

APA Format for Citing References

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Works with no authorWhen a work has no author, use the first two or three words of the work's title (omitting any initial articles) as your text reference, capitalizing each word. Place the title in quotation marks if it refers to an article, chapter of a book, or Web page. Italicize the title if it refers to a book, periodical, brochure, or report.

on climate change ("Climate and Weather," 1997) Guide to Agricultural Meteorological Practices (1981)

 

Anonymous authors should be listed as such followed by a comma and the date.on climate change (Anonymous, 2008)

 

Specific parts of a sourceTo cite a specific part of a source (always necessary for quotations), include the page, chapter, etc. (with appropriate abbreviations) in the in-text citation.

(Stigter & Das, 1981, p. 96)De Waal (1996) overstated the case when he asserted that "we seem to be reaching ... from the hands of philosophers" (p. 218).

If page numbers are not included in electronic sources (such as Web-based journals), provide the paragraph number preceded by the abbreviation "para." or the heading and following paragraph.

(Mönnich & Spiering, 2008, para. 9) 

Additional pieces of information for works accessed online

Internet Address: A stable Internet address should be included and should direct the reader as close as possible to the actual work. If the work has a digital object identifier (DOI), use this. If there is no DOI or similar handle, use a stable URL. If the URL is not stable, as is often the case with online newspapers and some subscription-based databases, use the home page of the site you retrieved the work from.

Date: If the work is a finalized version published and dated, as in the case of a journal article, the date within the main body of the citation is enough. However, if the work is not dated and/or is subject to change, as in the case of an online encyclopedia article, include the date that you retrieved the information.

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http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/apa, Ibid.

Reference ListReferences cited in the text of a research paper must appear in a Reference List or bibliography. This list provides the information necessary to identify and retrieve each source.

Order: Entries should be arranged in alphabetical order by authors' last names. Sources without authors are arranged alphabetically by title within the same list.

Authors: Write out the last name and initials for all authors of a particular work. Use an ampersand (&) instead of the word "and" when listing multiple authors of a single work. e.g. Smith, J. D., & Jones, M.

Titles: Capitalize only the first word of a title or subtitle, and any proper names that are part of a title.

Pagination: Use the abbreviation p. or pp. to designate page numbers of articles from periodicals that do not use volume numbers, especially newspapers. These abbreviations are also used to designate pages in encyclopedia articles and chapters from edited books.

Indentation: The first line of the entry is flush with the left margin, and all subsequent lines are indented (5 to 7 spaces) to form a "hanging indent".

Underlining vs. Italics: It is appropriate to use italics instead of underlining for titles of books and journals.

Examples

Book, two authors

Frank, R. H., & Bernanke, B. (2007). Principles of macro-economics (3rd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Edited book

Gibbs, J. T., & Huang, L. N. (Eds.). (2001). Children of color: Psychological interventions with culturally diverse youth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Journal article, more than two authors

Van Vugt, M., Hogan, R., & Kaiser, R. B. (2008). Leadership, followership, and evolution: Some lessons from the past. American Psychologist, 63(3), 182-196.

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http://www.library.cornell.edu/resrch/citmanage/apa, Ibid.

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How to Avoid Plagiarism

Assemble and analyze sources that you have determined are relevant to the issues you are investigating

Acknowledge clearly when and how you are drawing on the ideas or phrasings of others

Learn the conventions for citing documents and acknowledge sources appropriate to the field you are studying

Consult your instructors when you are unsure about how to acknowledge the contributions others have made to your thoughts and writing

Council of Writing Program Administrators. “Statement of Best Practices.” Available at: http://www.wpacouncil.org/node/9,, accessed 25 January 2010.

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Important Skills for Students

Anyone with some basic knowledge can find information on the internet - it's what you do with that information that is important

The real skills you need to learn are interpretation and analysis - how to process the information you find

These skills will be critical to you as managers in the workplace

“Educational Tips on Plagiarism Prevention.” Available at: www.plagiarism.com. Accessed 25 January 2010.