Researching ethically
Using information generates issues related to ethics and law. You will need several types of resources to use in order to incorporate information in your paper. This is acceptable but you cannot just copy and paste text from other sources in your paper. You will need to describe the sources from which you have borrowed ideas. If you incorporate text in your paper without crediting your sources, then you commit plagiarism.
Plagiarism
This is the theft of intellectual property. To avoid plagiarism you need to create citations for all the information sources that you have used in your paper. Plagiarism is a serious offense that may appear in three forms.
- Intentional plagiarism: representing others ideas as your own.
- Unintentional plagiarism: It usually results from the lack of knowledge about proper use of sources and citation.
- Self-plagiarism: Reusing your own words from previous submitted papers.
Watch the video to find out more about the types of plagiarism.
Reasons for avoiding plagiarism
- Academic consequences: Follow the guidelines of your institution otherwise you may result to be found guilty of plagiarism. You may be suspended from class, fail the paper and dismissed from the college.
- Cheating yourself: You will not develop the ability to critically respond to information sources and may prevent you from admitting Graduate school.
- Cheating detectors: There are several tools that can detect plagiarism. Our college uses Turnitin.
- Reduces your credibility: Once you committee plagiarism, nobody will ever believe in your work.
- Impacts your grading curve: It will not be easy to improve your grades if you commit plagiarism.
- Diminishes the value of your degree: You will never find out what you would be able to do.
In this part of the guide you will find:
- how to incorporate text in your paper
& differences between summarizing and paraphrazing