Reading: Dr. Steven Kreis’s The History Guide: A Student’s Guide to the Study of History: I've just started working my way through Saylor.org's HIST104: Historical Methodology - The Art and Craft of the Historian, and I'm now on Unit 2: Basic Historical Research Skills.
In lieu of me actually being in a class where things are discussed, I'll just write my thoughts about the materials here.
2.4 Producing a Finished Product
2.4.3 Citing Your Sources—Avoiding Plagiarism
Reading: Dr. Steven D. Krause’s The Process of Research Writing:
The author says that it can be hard to 'effectively quote and paraphrase research', and that it takes practice. This chapter's goal is to introduce the reader some basic strategies. He reiterates the basic guidelines from the annotated bibliography chapter:
- Stay neutral. Summaries should be "just the facts"
- Don't quote the thing you're summarizing
- Don't cut and paste from abstracts!
"The general rule of thumb is any time you use three or more words as they appeared in the original source, you should treat it as a quote."
Both quotes & paraphrases should:
- be "introduced," especially the first time a certain source is mentioned
- 'include an explanation of why that piece of evidence is important
- 'include a proper citation of the source'
The author says that there's an art to the effective use of quotes and paraphrases. He says that it's generally best to use a quote when:
- The exact wording is important to your point
- 'You want to highlight your agreement with the author's words'
- 'You want to highlight your disagreement with the author's words'
And paraphrasing is best used when:
- 'There is no good reason to use a quote to refer to your evidence' (i.e. if the exact wording is not important to your point)
- You're explaining a particular bit of evidence in order to explain, analyze, or interpret it in detail
- 'You need to balance a direct quote in your writing', as you need to be careful about quoting too much, as it makes your paper,etc harder and more awkward to read
The author gives this example as a decent way to include a quote:
'In her Pharmaceutical Executive article available through the Wilson Select Internet database, Jill Wechsler writes about one of the positive effects of advertising prescription drugs on television. “African-American physicians regard direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicines as one way to educate minority patients about needed treatment and healthcare options.”'
He also includes this bad/good example of how to paraphrase (using MLA):
The next section of this chapter is on avoiding plagiarism. It tells us that plagiarism is theft, and academia has strict rules and serious punishments for those who plagiarize.
The author reminds us that not only is there purposeful plagiarism, but the biggest problem in academia is what he calls 'accidental plagiarism.' That is the 'result of improperly paraphrasing, summarizing, quoting, or citing your evidence in your academic wiring.' He created a useful example of what accidental plagairism might look like using this original exerpt:
Those who denounce cyberculture today strangely resemble those who
criticized rock music during the fifties and sixties. Rock started out as an
Anglo-American phenomenon and has become an industry. Nonetheless,
it was able to capture the hopes of young people around the world and
provided enjoyment to those of us who listened to or played rock. Sixties
pop was the conscience of one or two generations that helped bring the
war in Vietnam to a close. Obviously, neither rock nor pop has solved
global poverty or hunger. But is this a reason to be “against” them? (ix).
(Lévy, Pierre. Cyberculture. Trans. Robert Bononno. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2001.)
His example of accidental plagairism:
The same kind of people who criticize cyberculture are the same kind of people who criticized rock and roll music back in the fifties and sixties. But both cyberculture and rock music inspire and entertain young people.
Despite not using the exact words from the original, the author states that they 'are certainly close enough to constitute a form of plagiarism.' He points out that it's easy to change a plagiarized paragraph into an acceptable one, simply by properly citing the source. His corrected paraphrase:
Pierre Lévy suggests that the same kind of people who criticize cyberculture are the same kind of people who criticized rock and roll music back in the fifties and sixties. But both cyberculture and rock music inspire and entertain young people (ix).
The "golden rule" to avoid plagairism is to "Always cite your sources." and when in doubt of when you should cite... "you should probably cite your source."
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