Resource of the Week #194: A Video on Avoiding Accidental Plagiarism

Hello again. At the university where I teach, the fall semester just ended. The semester was good: The students in my classes were intelligent, hardworking, and creative. Also, I didn’t find any cases of plagiarism.

Some semesters, I’ve found plagiarism in a student’s paper. Usually, it seems, the student wasn’t trying to do something unethical. Rather, the student didn’t understand enough about plagiarism. Or the student was careless.

Researchers, too, sometimes commit such accidental plagiarism. Even if accidental, plagiarism is very serious. It can result in rejection of one’s paper, and it can seriously harm one’s career.

How can researchers avoid this problem? The video “5 Easy Tips to Avoid Accidental Plagiarism” can help. Although less than 4 minutes long, this video, which is from Editage, contains much good advice.

In short, the tips in this video are the following:

• “Acknowledge the work of others.”
• When using another author’s wording, present it in quotation marks.
• Paraphrase thoroughly. Don’t just change a few words in the original.
• “Take notes carefully.” Use your own words, or use quotation marks. Indicate the source.
• If unsure whether to cite a reference when stating a fact, do so.

I encourage you to look at this video and to suggest it to others.

Until the next post—

Barbara