Plagiarism is stealing someone else's idea or work and passing it off as something you thought of or did yourself. While certain kinds of plagiarism are acceptable in today's world - web plagiarism among e-tailers being the perfect example - most plagiarism associated with school and academics is definitely frowned upon. Thanks to a number of clever web-based tools, it is getting harder and harder to drop a few lines into your paper without raising an eyebrow. What follows is an informal guide to plagiarizing that doesn't guarantee you won't get caught, but can tip the odds in your favor. First I'll cover the keys to plagiarism success, followed by a quick how-to guide.
Key 1. Generate goodwill by appearing to be a good student.
Teachers and professors are more likely to suspect plagiarism if it comes from one of their worst students who never attends class and just needs a passing grade on the last term paper to squeak by. If you're always at class, participate in discussions, ask questions, and do okay on the exam, you'll look a lot more like a regular student instead of one of the "profiled plagiarizers." If you appear to be a hard-working student with some degree of respect for the academic system, it's almost impossible for your instructor to follow through on their suspicions of plagiarism. And even if you are eventually caught, you may be able to get off the hook much easier if you've already carefully cultivated a good student-teacher bond.
Key 2. Consistency is critical.
If you're going to plagiarize, you need to do it often, on every paper your instructor will see, and especially on the critical first paper of the term. That first paper establishes certain expectations about your writing style and capacity that a plagiarized paper later in the semester will not be able to replicate. You cannot plagiarize only on papers that you don't have time to do, or only on the last paper of the term - your instructor is going to be especially wary if you've asked for a due date extension or it's the final paper, but if you've been carefully plagiarizing the entire time, he or she isn't even going to blink at the discombobulated mess you turn in. By consistently plagiarizing, you avoid contrasting writing styles that are a dead giveaway. This gets a bit more challenging if the course has a written exam component that must be completed in class, because you will have to deliberately attempt to create some of that same confusion that is so prevalent in your plagiarized papers.
Key 3. Be sure to pay attention to the differences between student writing and professional writing.
Sure, the section you've just pasted into your paper sounds bloody brilliant, but there is such a thing as sounding a little too good. Your instructor has probably done some professional writing, and is going to easily see where your amateur style ends and the PhD you copied picks up in a way you simply won't be able to notice. One obvious giveaway here is that plagiarized sections seldom have mistakes if written by a professional. If the sections of your paper that you wrote (and yes, you will need to write a few lines to form the sinew of your zombified paper) have glaring grammar mistakes or even subtle changes like changing verb tenses or passive sentences and other sections don't, you're in trouble. The only way to work around this one is to change what you're copying so it matches your style better. Add a few errors - not the obvious kind - to your plagiarized sections, and be sure to use less clear, more ambiguous language whenever possible, since professional writers are often direct, concise, and use unique turns of phrase in ways you'll never be able to. A simple tip that's often overlooked is foreign phrases and logic words - nobody is going to use "thus", "henceforth" ad nauseum, and joie de vivre do sound smart, but you wouldn't use them in a paper you actually wrote, and your instructor knows this.
How To Plagiarize - Step-by-Step
1: Choose a relevant source.
This means that instead of grabbing a couple lines out of a random paper and lining them up neatly in one of your paragraphs, you need to know what you're grabbing and make sure you're getting the good stuff. If your paper is about why hydroelectricity is not good for the environment, plagiarizing a source that discusses hydro, solar, and wind power is going to be a dead giveaway that you didn't even read the stuff you pasted into your paper - which is the single biggest sin of copying and pasting. If your paper is supposed to be about T.S. Eliot and the meaning of Four Quartets, copying a source that talks about The Dry Salvages in relation to Ash Wednesday might seem like a good choice to a novice plagiarizer. Until your instructor calls your bluff and points out that you didn't even know Ash Wednesday is another of Eliot's works. You need information that fits seamlessly with the rest of your paper.
A smart plagiarizer will try to find paragraphs about the subject material that don't include any other subjects, don't really make any arguments, and generally are what the academic world terms "fluff." Such a paragraph is ideal because you can put it almost anywhere, it won't contradict your own argument (if you don't have an argument, your paper is already on the rocks, and getting caught plagiarizing will only further jeopardize you) and it won't throw up the red flag to a savvy reader. I will point out that by the time you've found such a paragraph, you probably could have composed your own, assuming you write English fairly well.
2: Change words you don't know to words you do know. Change the order of sentences and phrases in the paragraph.
Maybe even mix and match more than one source. All the while maintaining a section of your paper that is carefully void of any intelligent communication. For example, if the author you copied says "There is an ambivalence in Ojibwe community members about their tribal councils that is rooted in egalitarian ideology and practice." the odds are good you're going to need to change a few of those big words. And to do that you're going to have to look them up. I'd try changing the order too. For example, let's say "Ojibwe community members have mixed feelings about their tribal council members because they view them as equals." See how we still have the same idea, without the big words, in a different order? This is key for two reasons.
First, you have a much better shot at explaining the second sentence to your instructor, because you actually know what some of the words mean. Second, if your instructor does a quick Google search for the sentence after suspecting something is fishy with it (Indeed, there is something fishy with it, since it's from a text by Larry Nesper called The Walleye War) they won't find your source. A little experimenting on Google will show you how much you have to change a given sentence to avoid a direct match popping up as a result of a search, but this is the single biggest mistake you can make. Mostly because there's no turning back once an instructor has this kind of ammo against you - you can't explain this one away.
3: Know your paper.
It might follow naturally from number 1 and number 2, but if your prof says, "I'm a little fuzzy about this bit here, could you explain your thought process to me?" they are suspicious, and your responses will determine his or her response. If you know your paper - actually having read it before handing it in - you're off to much better start than most.
No comments:
Post a Comment