Plagiarism (1 Viewer)

[Ekman]

I'm just curious about how much copying is required to be considered as 'plagiarism'. I don't like to copy and paste paragraphs from other essays, but sometimes I copy certain parts of sentences that helps with the expression of my ideas. Will I get in trouble for plagiarism?

 

[Squar3root]

I'm just curious about how much copying is required to be considered as 'plagiarism'. I don't like to copy and paste paragraphs from other essays, but sometimes I copy certain parts of sentences that helps with the expression of my ideas. Will I get in trouble for plagiarism?

that is plagiarism

 

[Silly Sausage]

I'm just curious about how much copying is required to be considered as 'plagiarism'. I don't like to copy and paste paragraphs from other essays, but sometimes I copy certain parts of sentences that helps with the expression of my ideas. Will I get in trouble for plagiarism?

Do you place the quotation brackets and reference them afterwards? If not then that is plagiarism.

 

[Speed6]

You must reference them from where you sourced at the end

 

[Ekman]

Thanks for the clarification everyone, and don't worry, I hardly copied anything for my upcoming task 3 essay.

 

[mrpotatoed]

I was also curious about this a few days ago... what if you take a sentence and change it into your style, using synonyms for the key verbs, rearranging the sentence, chopping some words out, etc, so that it isn't copied word for word, but the general jist of what you are saying is the same?

And how would you reference in a timed exam? Would seem odd.

 

[Absolutezero]

Thanks for the clarification everyone, and don't worry, I hardly copied anything for my upcoming task 3 essay.

That's still concerning.

I was also curious about this a few days ago... what if you take a sentence and change it into your style, using synonyms for the key verbs, rearranging the sentence, chopping some words out, etc, so that it isn't copied word for word, but the general jist of what you are saying is the same?

And how would you reference in a timed exam? Would seem odd.

That's still plagiarism. You're still copying. You need to use the original sentence to inform your own ideas about the topic and write about your understanding in your own way.

Basically, don't reference in an exam. Use your own words. The only except would be important quotes from academic papers, or a famous quote from a famous person (and even the latter wouldn't need a formal reference)

 

[mrpotatoed]

That's still concerning.



That's still plagiarism. You're still copying. You need to use the original sentence to inform your own ideas about the topic and write about your understanding in your own way.

Basically, don't reference in an exam. Use your own words. The only except would be important quotes from academic papers, or a famous quote from a famous person (and even the latter wouldn't need a formal reference)

So taking something like "1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government." (topic sentence of sparknotes)

but instead writing something, off the top of my head, like "Totalitarian government can be seen to be focused upon in George Orwell's political novel 1984 with the purpose of warning readers in the West of its potential for oppression."

Surely something like that cannot be considered Plagarism. With thousands of kids doing English papers, you are going to have lots of people talking about pretty much the same thing, and even if you come up with something genuinely your own, im sure someone else out there will still have something as similar to your sentence as my improv sentence is to sparknotes.

 

[Absolutezero]

So taking something like "1984 is a political novel written with the purpose of warning readers in the West of the dangers of totalitarian government." (topic sentence of sparknotes)

but instead writing something, off the top of my head, like "Totalitarian government can be seen to be focused upon in George Orwell's political novel 1984 with the purpose of warning readers in the West of its potential for oppression."

Surely something like that cannot be considered Plagarism. With thousands of kids doing English papers, you are going to have lots of people talking about pretty much the same thing, and even if you come up with something genuinely your own, im sure someone else out there will still have something as similar to your sentence as my improv sentence is to sparknotes.

It's a grey area. The point is you stole the line. You should be stealing the ideas.

 

[mrpotatoed]

What if one was to change it so far as

"Totalitarian government can be seen to be analysed in George Orwell's novel 1984 with the intent of acknowledging its potential for oppression in Western culture."

The only nouns the are the same (from a quick check) are "totalitarian government", "1984", "novel". None of these words can be 'claimed' by someone, and they are very generic, if you don't have those key words in a 1984 essay there's probably something wrong. No two words in succession are the same. I think. I have stolen the "jist of the sentence" and idea from sparknotes, but the actual sentence is anything but the same. It's been changed into my own words, only the idea remains (from my knowledge, an idea as broad as this cannot also be claimed to be produced or the property of a single person). I have a feeling this may be what OP is referring to? (taking ideas from other texts to help with expression and fluency, but not actually copy pasting it)

 

[Absolutezero]

Like I said, grey area. It also comes down to intent, which can't be judged purely from the written word. Keep in mind that plagiarism and getting caught are two different things.

Because it's one sentence, it's also harder to make a claim. If you did the same thing with every sentence in the first paragraph of the Sparknotes text, it would be a more clearer case of plagiarism, one that you'd also be more likely to be caught for.