ACADEMIC WRITING SKILLS AS A PLAGIARISM PREVENTION TOOL
The given article considers the issue of plagiarism in higher educational institutions. It reveals the reasons for plagiarism on the base of various literature resources. The authors assume that one of the prevention tools can be acquisition of academic writing skills, such as paraphrasing, quoting and summarizing. Moreover, it is stated that students should know how to correctly cite the sources in accordance with different citation styles. The authors provide all the examples according to APA referencing and citation style.
Key words: academic writing, plagiarism, paraphrasing, summarizing, quoting.
1. INTRODUCTION
In 2018, a number of Kazakhstani universities established Academic Integrity League which aim is to improve the quality of education in Kazakhstan. The quality of education is supposed to be increased by means of elimination of corruption in higher educational institutions and instilling integrity principles. Integrity itself is “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles that you refuse to change” [1]. In terms of academic environment, integrity means being honest, trustworthy, fair, respectful and responsible [2]. Such moral behavior excludes any cases of cheating, falsification, plagiarism and other types of academic misconduct.
Plagiarism currently has become a major problem in academic environment. There are various reasons for such a plague. However, first of all, definition to plagiarism should be given. According to W. Kibler, E. Nuss, B. Paterson and G. Pavela plagiarism is a “the deliberate adoption or reproduction of ideas or words or statements of another person as one’s own words without acknowledgement” [3, p. 9]. Cambridge Definition dictionary defines plagiarism as “the practice of using copying someone else’s idea or work and pretending that you thought of it or created it” [4].
2. Why do students plagiarize?
So, what are the reasons for plagiarism? There are many of them. They can range from internal to external ones. First of all, a banal laziness can make students steal other people’s ideas without any trace of acknowledgment. The easiest way to produce the essays or other assignments is to use “copy-paste” method or just order the works and pay for them. Such kind of plagiarism is called intentional and some universities expel students from the course or even from university.
Another reason for purposeful academic misconduct is time-management. Most of students tend to procrastinate tasks and the last moment have to submit the assignments. Therefore, some of them have to use external sources and, for example, with the help of paraphrase online machines submit paraphrased works without given proper credits. Fortunately, there is a great number of plagiarism detectors as Turnitin that can easily identify the original sources and show the percentage of originality.
In addition to intentional plagiarism, students can plagiarize unintentionally without understanding that they have violated the academic integrity rules. To begin, students can come from the culture where it is normal to use sources without credits. J. Sowell writes that in collectivist culture where knowledge belongs to everyone but not one person, plagiarism is appropriate. Some people citing others show respect and honor. For another people it shows how well you can memorize texts instead of applying critical thinking skills [5, p 3]. What is more, some educational institutions do not apply strict measures to those who cheat or plagiarize. Such neutralizing attitude encourages other students to violate the rules because administration does not imply serious penalties [6, p.131], [7, p. 4].
Secondly, students copy because they don’t understand the topic or it can happen due to poor teaching, i.e instructors do not explain properly the assignments or course materials [6, p. 133]. The last reason that should be noted is that students occasionally do not know how avoid plagiarism in their works. Thus, they should be taught such skills.
L. Bloom writes that to prevent plagiarism must be much easier and interesting task for instructors than to punish it [5, p.2]. So, today, a number of universities introduced academic writing course one of the goals of which is to teach students to cite appropriately. In order to teach students to express their original ideas and support them with the use of additional sources, they should be taught such academic writing skills as paraphrasing, summarizing and quoting. The importance of these skills is determined by the fact that students should be able to integrate evidence correctly into their works and not violate authors’ rights or just plagiarize.
3. Quoting
To begin, quoting is the use of author’s words with quotations marks. It should be noted that while quoting, a student should copy author’s words word by word. For example:
Original excerpt: Although instructors frequently warn students not to plagiarize essays, issuing dire warnings about failing grades or even expulsion, plagiarism continues to be a problem [8, p. 161].
Quotation of the excerpt: S. Wilhoit says, “Although instructors frequently warn students not to plagiarize essays, issuing dire warnings about failing grades or even expulsion, plagiarism continues to be a problem”.
However, it is permitted to omit author’s idea and use ellipsis, which is three full stops, to show it. For example:
Quotation of the excerpt: S. Wilhoit says, “Although instructors frequently warn students not to plagiarize …, issuing dire warnings about failing grades or even expulsion, plagiarism continues to be a problem”.
While quoting and following APA rules, students can use such symbol as ‘[sic]’ and change the font into italics. Square brackets with ‘sic’ are used when the original text contains a mistake and the symbol is placed right after the mistake. The author uses italics when he or she wants to emphasize the text. In that case after the text with italics, ‘[italics added]’ is written.
APA style states that students can use quotations when the original text does not exceed 40 characters or 4-5 lines, according to other sources. Otherwise, block quotation is used. For example: Jones’s (1993) study found the following:
The “placebo effect”, which had been verified in previous studies, disappeared when behaviors were studies in this manner. Furthermore, the behaviors were never exhibited again [italics added], even when reel [sic] drugs were administered. Earlier studies were clearly premature in attributing the results to a placebo effect. [9]
In the given example, we avoid italics to show the original fragment.
To sum up, quoting is characterized with the presence of quotation marks, word by word copy of original text and obligatory use of page numbers. Despite the easiness of using quoting, students should not heavily rely on it. J. D. Lester writes that quoting should comprise 10% of the original text, while another share of sources should be paraphrased [10]. As for the practical approach, much quoting should be avoided as it considerably decreases the originality of submitted works.
4. Paraphrase
Another type of integrating evidence into the text is paraphrase. Paraphrase is retelling of the original author’s idea with own words. J. Sowell distinguishes four criteria for a good paraphrase. First of all, it should have the same meaning as the original text. The paraphrase must not distort the original text nor add new information. Secondly, students should use own words to convey the meaning of the text except professional terms that cannot be paraphrased. Third, paraphrase can be the same length as the original. And, the last but not least, paraphrase credits the original source. [5, p.6]
There are two paraphrase techniques that help students explain the original text with the help of own ideas. The first is called ‘tell-a-friend method’. It has the following process:
1 Student must read the original text and understand its meaning; 2 Explain the text to an ‘imaginary’ friend, in other words retell it; 3 Write down the explanation;
4 Read the paraphrase and compare it with the original text. [11, p. 7]
While paraphrasing, students should not just substitute the words with obvious synonyms. It is also necessary to change sentence structures and even start paraphrasing from the middle or end of the text. The given examples show how a good and bad paraphrase looks like:
Original text: Differentiation as an instructional approach promotes a balance between a student’s style and a student’s ability. Differentiated instruction provides the student with options for processing and internalizing the content, and for constructing new learning in order to progress academically.
Bad paraphrase: Differentiation is a way to encourage equality between the approach and talent of the student (Thompson, 2009). This type of instruction gives students different ways to deal with and grasp information, and for establishing new learning to move on in education (Thompson, 2009).
Good paraphrase: Teachers use differentiated instruction to help students learn, allowing the teacher to cater lessons to the way each student learns and each student’s skill (Thompson, 2009)
[12]
The example above demonstrates that in the first paraphrase, a student just substitutes one synonyms with others. In the second one, the student paraphrased the whole quotation, replaced the words and changed the structure.
The second way of paraphrasing is called a chunking method. The text is divided into logical phrases as known as ‘chunks’. It has the following process:
1 Student must read the original text several times and understand its meaning;
2 Student divides the text into several logical phrases (chunks) and underlines each chunk;
3 Each chunk is explained with the help of own words;
4 The explanation of each chunk is connected into one paraphrase sentence.
Here is the example of paraphrase with the help of chunking method:
Original text: It is estimated that hunger and malnutrition could be eliminated globally
Chunk 1
for less than is spent on pet food in Europe and the US; universal literacy could be achieved
Chunk 2 Chunk 3
for one-third of what is spent annually on perfumes.
Chunk 4
(B. Knickerbocker, “If poor get richer, does world see progress?”, The Christian Science Monitor, Jan.22, 2004) Explanation of chunks:
1 Problems of famine could be solved worldwide
2 For less money than it costs to feed their pets in the US and Europe
3 Everyone could learn to read and write
4 For about 33 percent of the amount that people spend on perfume every year.
Paraphrase: Knickerbocker (2004) notes that problems of famine could be solved worldwide
Chunk 1
for less money than it costs people to feed their pets in the US or Europe, and everyone could
Chunk 2 learn to read and write for about 33% of the amount that people spend on perfume every year.
Chunk 3 Chunk 4.
[11, p.7)
Paraphrase is the most favorable method in comparison with quotation. However, there are some rules when quotation should be preferred. It is poetic language or a famous quotation.
5. Summary
The last but not least way of integrating the evidence is summarizing. Cambridge dictionary defines paraphrasing as “to express the most important facts or ideas about something or someone in a short and clear form” [13]. Summarizing is usually used for longer texts such as chapters, articles or books. Summary usually comprises ¾ of the original text or 10% of it. The main requirements for summary is that is should convey only the main ideas of the text without any details. While writing a summary, students should include won ideas and opinions on the text.
There are three methods of writing a good summary: highlighting key ideas, dividing the text into logically connected information and summary grid.
The first method requires students read the text several times and highlight the key words and key sentences. These key sentences in the paragraphs usually include the main ideas. After that, students paraphrase the key sentences and write a summary.
According to the second method, students divide the text into topics. Every time the topic or idea changes, students put a line and separate them. Then each section is analyzed and main ideas or topics of these sections are paraphrased.
The last method as known as ‘summary grid’ demands drawing a grid and placing the main ideas of a paragraph or section into the grid. It is a type of note-taking. An example of summary grid is given below (see Table 1) [11, p. 25]:
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it should be said that all the techniques of integrating the evidence into the text help students avoid plagiarism and encourage them to use own ideas. Moreover, one of the advantages of these methods is that it develops critical thinking and such skills as analysis and synthesis. Students should be taught how to express their own thoughts and not violate academic integrity rules. Furthermore, teaching students not to plagiarize instils anticorruption behavior among youth.
REFERENCES
1 Cambridge definition dictionary [e-source] // URL: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/integrity (accessed 15.02.2019).
2 The International Center for Academic Integrity [Электронный ресурс] // Fundamental Values of Academic Integrity. 2013. URL: https://academicintegrity.org/fundamental-values/ (accessed 15.02.2019).
3 Sutton E. Undergraduate student perceptions of academic dishonesty as a function of ethnicity and religious participation. (Doctoral dissertation) [e-source] // 1991. URL: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.kz/&httpsredir=1&article= 10779&context=rtd (accessed 15.02.2019).
4 Cambridge definition dictionary [e-source] // URL: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/plagiarism (accessed 15.02.2019).
5 Sowell J. Beyond the plagiarism checker: Helping nonnative English speakers (NNESs) avoid plagiarism // English Teaching Forum. – 2018. – V. 56(2). – P.2-15.
6 Tatum. H. & Schwartz B. Honor Codes: Evidence Based Strategies for Improving Academic Integrity // Theory Into Practice. – 2017. – 56(2), — P. 129-135.
7 Jerebl E., Perc M., LaÈmmlein B., Jerebic J. Urh, M., Podbregar I. & Sprajc, P. Factors influencing plagiarism in higher education: A comparison of German and Slovene students // Plos One. – 2018. – 13 (8), — P. 1-16.
8 Wilhoit S. Helping Students Avoid Plagiarism // College Teaching. – 1994. – Vol. 42 (4). – P. 161-164.
9 Purdue online writing lab. In text citations: Basics. [e-source] // URL:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_tex t_citations_the_basics.html (accessed 15.02.2019).
10 Benucci H. Using evidence in academic writing: avoiding plagiarism [e-source]// URL:
https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/using_evidence_in_academic_writing.pdf (accessed 15.02.2019).
11 Dollahite, N. E., & Haun, J. Source work: Academic writing from sources // — 2012. – Heinle: Cengage learning. P. 222
12 Walden University. Example of paraphrasing [e-source] // URL: https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/evidence/paraphrase/examples (accessed 16.02.2019).
13 Cambridge definition dictionary [e-source] // URL: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/summarize (accessed 15.02.2019).
А.С. Сарсенбаева, Е.В. Емельянова
КазГЮУ имени М.С. Нарикбаева, Астана, Казахстан Данная статья рассматривает проблему плагиата в высших учебных заведениях. Статья раскрывает причины плагиата на основе анализа прочитанной литературы. Авторы статьи предполагают, что лучшим способом предотвратить плагиат является обучение студентов таким навыкам академического письма, как цитирование, аннотация и перифраз. Более того, в статье говориться о том, что студенты должны уметь правильно использовать цитирование согласно стилям цитирования. Все примеры в статье оформлены согласно стилю цитирования АРА.
А.С. Сарсенбаева, Е.В. Емельянова
М.С. Нарикбаев атындағы ҚазГЗУ, Астана, Казахстан Бұл мақалада жоғары оқу орындарында плагиат мәселесі қарастырылады. Түрлі әдебиеттер базасында плагиаттың себептерін анықтайды. Авторлар профилактикалық құралдардың біреуі парафразы, дәйексөз және олардын жиынтыктары сияқты академиялық жазу дағдыларын меңгеруі мүмкін деп есептейді. Бұдан басқа, оқушылар әртүрлі сілтеме стильдеріне сәйкес көздерді дұрыс айқындау туралы білуі керек. Авторлар АПА-ға сілтеме және сілтеме стиліне сәйкес барлық мысалдарды береді.