EN102 Week3 QUIZ

Question 1

 A sentence from a source reads:

Children have been seen behaving in a hyperactive manner after consuming large quantities of candy, but there is no scientific data to explain the biological mechanism behind this change in behavior.

The student writes in his essay:

When we think of candy, we often associate that with childhood. We tend to see candy as the ultimate childhood treat, something that a child can earn for being good. Observation can tell us that some children can become hyperactive after they consume large amounts of candy, thusly making them act out, no longer being good. While there has been no scientific data to explain the biological mechanism behind this change in behavior, it does stand to reason that limiting a child’s intake of candy is a good move (Hartlane, 2004, p. 26).

Is this plagiarism? Why or why not?

This is not Plagiarism

This is because, to begin with, the writer has paraphrased the response in his essay to suit the requirements of the essay. Next, the student goes ahead and gives a source of the information within an in text citation and appends that to the body of the text, inclusive of a page number.

Question 2

Yes I would.

•  If you were a teacher, would you attempt to make a distinction between intentional and unintentional plagiarism? Why or why not? What might make the task difficult?

Intentional plagiarism is seen in contexts where the writes deliberately fails to cite the source of his information in a manner likely to suggest that the work he did was his own. He thus fails to give credit to his information source, knowingly.

Unintentional plagiarism can be seen in aspects where the writer fails to give adequate citations mainly because he doesn’t understand or have sufficient know how of the rules of citation.

I would therefore make an attempt to make a clear distinction between these two in order to be able to identify which student needs help or rather assistance with the rules concerning plagiarism and the student that wants to take credit where the work is not their own.

What might make the task difficult is the ability to differentiate the two. Unless the teacher personally knows the two types of students, he might not be able to tell who falls within which category.

Question 3 

Question 4

• Explain two ways a student can avoid unintentional plagiarism
  • Understanding the rules surrounding plagiarism. When one fully understands all the rules surrounding citations and those of avoidance of plagiarism, he is bound to do their work free from any aspect of plagiarism. With the understanding of all that is needed, the student does their work diligently, giving all the sources and citations where needed and thus avoiding plagiarism.
  • Taking enough time with the assignment to enable them polish their work without leaving any aspect of their citations out. Most of the time when work is done in haste, the student may accidentally fail to cite key sources of information thus presenting their work to appear as having been plagiarized. This can be avoided by taking enough time with the assignments.

A student who plagiarizes intentionally should first be given a warning concerning the same. If this does not work, they can then be counselled on the benefits of presenting their own work free from plagiarism. This can be set in place by giving them additional assignments to cover on the aspects of plagiarism as you monitor their progress. If all these do not work then the next punishment would be to fail them in the course and have them redo it.

•  Depending on the instructor, the penalties for plagiarism vary dramatically—from revising the assignment to failure for the course. What do you think would be an appropriate penalty for a student who clearly plagiarized intentionally? Why? What factors might influence the penalty?

Factors influencing the choice of the penalty include the attitude of the student towards correction, the progress of the student in the revisions of their work and their willingness to present work free from plagiarism in the future assignments.

Question 5

 After reading about plagiarism in the APA Guide this week, define plagiarism in your own words. Why would a college be so interested in its prevention?

Question 6 

• Plagiarism is the act of taking another person’s words, ideas and works without giving them the credit they deserve in an attempt to make the work appear as your own, either knowingly or unknowingly.

Question 7

• List three reasons why a student might commit plagiarism.
  • Insufficient time available to complete the assignment provided
  • Student laziness
  • Failure of comprehension of all the rules surrounding plagiarism