SCRIPT: WHAT IS PLAGIARISM?

Plagiarism is defined as representing the work of another as ones own, but this is kind of vague, and Ive
discovered that many students enter my class without having a real understanding of what it means to
plagiarize. I found this explanation of plagiarism from the University of Arizona to be one of the most clear:

According to the UofA website, "There are basically three kinds of plagiarism:

1. Using another person's exact words without including quotation marks AND citation. If you use
someone else's exact words, then you must cite the original source (either in a footnote or in a citation
in the text), and you must enclose the words in quotation marks or else set them off from the rest of
the text by indenting them from the other text.

Think about it this way: what if you didnt have a car, but you needed one, so you just stole someone
elses car and said that it was yours? That would be theft, plain and simple. Arent you doing exactly the
same if you steal someone elses words and use them, verbatim, as though they were your own?
2. Using another person's words, but changing some of them, or rearranging them. This is plagiarism
even if the source is cited.

In this case, you dont have a car, so you take someone elses, but you change the color, or the hubcaps,
or put some racing stripes on it, and say that its your car. Isnt this still theft?

A related type that I see quite often is patchwork plagiarism, where students copy or paraphrase
from multiple sources.

If you own a chop shop, and you take stolen pieces from a number of different cars and put them
together to make one vehicle, is the car stolen?
3. Summarizing or paraphrasing another person's words without citation. If you use what someone else
has written, but you describe it or summarize it in your own words, then you don't need to enclose it in
quotation marks, but you still must provide a citation to the original source, either in a footnote or
directly in the text."

This is probably one of my toughest challenges, because students dont actually think that they are
plagiarizing. I often have to pose the question: Okay, which parts of this are your original
ideas/writing? In other words, if you take away all of the parts of the car that were not your own,
would there even be a car?
FINAL NOTE: [Its] not enough to simply include a reference to the original source in your
bibliography; "citation" of the original source means citing it where it appears in the text."

MANY of my students will list a source in the bibliography, but not make proper citations in the text.
Going back to the car example, if you steal someone elses car but you keep their registration with their
name on it in the car while people believe that you own it, havent you still stolen the car?

CITATION:
Three Kinds of Plagiarism. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona, n.d. PDF.
http://www.u.arizona.edu/~rlo/482/plagiarism.pdf

DIGITAL STORYTELLING TO DIGITAL INSTRUCTION: SAMPLE SCRIPT

Dr. Mary McGlasson, CGCC CTL 10/9/16