Revising to Eliminate Plagiarism

As you revise your papers, scrutinize your work carefully to be sure you have not inadvertently committed plagiarism.

The following paragraph (from page 28 of Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman) and the four guidelines that follow it will help you to understand the situations in which accidental plagiarism is most likely to occur.

So if you think the world feels crowded now, just wait a few decades. In 1800, London was the world’s largest city with one million people. By 1960, there were 111 cities with more than one million people. By 1995 there were 280, and today there are over 300, according to UN Population Fund statistics. The number of megacities (with ten million or more inhabitants) in the world has climbed from 5 in 1975 to 14 in 1995 and is expected to reach 26 cities by 2015, according to the UN. Needless to say, these exploding populations are rapidly overwhelming infrastructure in these megacities—nineteen million people in Mumbai alone—as well as driving loss of arable land, deforestation, overfishing, water shortages, and air and water pollution.

1. Be sure you have identified your source and provided appropriate documentation.

PLAGIARISM

The world is becoming more and more crowded, and some twenty-six cities are expected to have populations of over 10 million by 2015.

This student writer does not quote directly from Friedman’s discussion, but her summary of his comments does not represent her original ideas and therefore needs to be documented.

The following correct use of source material includes both an identifying tag (a phrase that identifies Friedman as the source of the ideas) and a page number that directs readers to the exact location of the material the student is summarizing. (Full source information is provided in the works-cited list.)

CORRECT

According to Thomas L. Friedman, the world is becoming more and more crowded, and twenty-six cities are expected to have populations of over 10 million by 2015 (28).

2. Be sure you have placed quotation marks around borrowed words.

PLAGIARISM

According to Thomas L. Friedman, the exploding populations of mega-cities around the world are overwhelming their infrastructure (28).

Although the passage above provides parenthetical documentation and includes an identifying tag indicating the source of its ideas, it uses Friedman’s exact words without placing them in quotation marks.

To avoid committing plagiarism, the writer needs to either place quotation marks around Friedman’s words or paraphrase his comments.

Correct (BORROWED WORDS IN QUOTATION MARKS)

According to Thomas L. Friedman, the “exploding populations” of large cities around the world are “rapidly overwhelming infrastructure in these megacities” (28).

Correct (BORROWED WORDS PARAPHRASED)

According to Thomas L. Friedman, the rapid rise in population of large cities around the world poses a serious threat to their ability to function (28).

3. Be sure you have indicated the boundaries of the borrowed material.

PLAGIARISM

The world is becoming more and more crowded, and this will lead to serious problems in the future. Soon, as many as twenty-six of the world’s cities will have populations over 10 million. It is clear that “these exploding populations are rapidly overwhelming infrastructure in these megacities” (Friedman 28).

In the passage above, the student correctly places Friedman’s words in quotation marks and includes appropriate parenthetical documentation. However, she does not indicate that other ideas in the passage, although not quoted directly, are also Friedman’s.

To avoid committing plagiarism, the student needs to use identi fying tags to indicate the boundaries of the borrowed material, which goes beyond the quoted words.

CORRECT

According to Thomas L. Friedman, the world is becoming more and more crowded, and this will lead to serious problems in the future. Soon, Friedman predicts, as many as twenty-six of the world’s cities will have populations of over 10 million, and this rise in population will put a serious strain on the cities’ resources, “rapidly overwhelming infrastructure in these megacities” (28).

4. Be sure you have used your own phrasing and syntax.

PLAGIARISM

If you feel crowded now, Thomas L. Friedman says, just wait twenty or thirty years. In 1800, London, with a million inhabitants, was the largest city in the world; over 111 cities had more than a million people by 1960. Thirty-five years later, there were 280; today, according to statistics provided by the UN Population Fund, there are more than 300. There were only five megacities (10 million people or more) in 1975 and fourteen in 1995. However, by 2015, the United Nations predicts, there might be twenty-six. These rapidly growing populations threaten to overwhelm the infrastructure of the mega cities (Mumbai alone has 19 million people), destroying arable land, the forests, and fishing and causing water shortages and water and air pollution (28).

The student who wrote the paragraph on the preceding page does provide an identifying tag and parenthetical documentation to identify the source of her ideas. However, her paragraph’s phrasing and syntax are almost identical to Friedman’s.

In the following paragraph, the writer correctly paraphrases and summarizes Friedman’s ideas, quoting a few distinctive passages. (See Chapter 9 for information on paraphrase and summary.)

CORRECT

As Thomas L. Friedman warns, the world has been growing more and more crowded and is likely to grow still more crowded in the years to come. Relying on UN population data, Friedman estimates that there will be some twenty more “megacities” (those with more than 10 million people) in 2015 than there were in 1975. (In 1800, in contrast, only one city in the world—London—had a million inhabitants.) Obviously, this is an alarming trend. Friedman believes that these rapidly growing populations are “overwhelming infrastructure in these megacities” and are bound to strain resources, leading to “loss of arable land, deforestation, [and] overfishing” and creating not only air and water pollution but water shortages as well (28).

STUDENT PARAGRAPH

In recent years, psychologists have focused on the idea that girls (unlike boys) face a crisis of self-esteem as they approach adolescence. Both Carol Gilligan and Mary Pipher did research to support this idea, showing how girls lose their self-confidence in adolescence because of sexist cultural expectations. Women’s groups have expressed concern that the school system favors boys and is biased against girls. In fact, boys are often regarded not just as classroom favorites but also as bullies who represent obstacles on the path to gender justice for girls. Recently, however, this impression that boys are somehow privileged while girls are shortchanged is being challenged.

Source 1

That boys are in disrepute is not accidental. For many years women’s groups have complained that boys benefit from a school system that favors them and is biased against girls. “Schools shortchange girls,” declares the American Association of University Women…. A stream of books and pamphlets cite research showing not only that boys are classroom favorites but also that they are given to schoolyard violence and sexual harassment.

In the view that has prevailed in American education over the past decade, boys are resented, both as the unfairly privileged sex and as obstacles on the path to gender justice for girls. This perspective is promoted in schools of education, and many a teacher now feels that girls need and deserve special indemnifying consideration. “It is really clear that boys are Number One in this society and in most of the world,” says Patricia O’Reilly, a professor of education and the director of the Gender Equity Center, at the University of Cincinnati.

The idea that schools and society grind girls down has given rise to an array of laws and policies intended to curtail the advantage boys have and to redress the harm done to girls. That girls are treated as the second sex in school and consequently suffer, that boys are accorded privileges and consequently benefit—these are things everyone is presumed to know. But they are not true.

—CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS, “THE WAR AGAINST BOYS”

Source 2

Girls face an inevitable crisis of self-esteem as they approach adolescence. They are in danger of losing their voices, drowning, and facing a devastating dip in self-regard that boys don’t experience. This is the picture that Carol Gilligan presented on the basis of her research at the Emma Willard School, a private girls’ school in Troy, N.Y. While Gilligan did not refer to genes in her analysis of girls’ vulnerability, she did cite both the “wall of Western culture” and deep early childhood socialization as reasons.

Her theme was echoed in 1994 by the clinical psychologist Mary Pipher’s surprise best seller, Reviving Ophelia (Putnam, 1994), which spent three years on the New York Times best-seller list. Drawing on case studies rather than systematic research, Pipher observed how naturally outgoing, confident girls get worn down by sexist cultural expectations. Gilligan’s and Pipher’s ideas have also been supported by a widely cited study in 1990 by the American Association of University Women. That report, published in 1991, claimed that teenage girls experience a “free-fall in self-esteem from which some will never recover.”

The idea that girls have low self-esteem has by now become part of the academic canon as well as fodder for the popular media. But is it true? No.

—ROSALIND C. BARNETT AND CARYL RIVERS, “MEN ARE FROM EARTH, AND SO ARE WOMEN. It’s Faulty Research That Sets Them Apart”

In this Slate article, Shafer accuses a New York Times reporter of plagiarism. As evidence, he presents the opening paragraphs from the source (a Bloomberg News story), the accused reporter’s New York Times article, and—for contrast—two other newspaper articles that report the same story without relying heavily on the original source.

TERM PAPERS FOR SALE ADVERTISEMENT (WEB PAGE)

AT ISSUE: SOURCES FOR UNDERSTANDING PLAGIARISM

1. The Web page above is from a site that offers papers for sale to students. What argument does this Web page make? What counterargument could you present?

2. Identify appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos on the TermPaperWriter.org page. Which appeal dominates?

3. Study the images of students on the page. What message do these images convey?

4. Unlike the TermPaperWriter.org page, many other sites that offer papers for sale include errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Search the Web for some other sites that offer papers for sale. What errors can you find? Do such errors weaken the message of these ads, or are they irrelevant?

5. One site promises its papers are “100% plagiarism free.” Does this promise make sense? Explain.

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