Written Notes on Avoiding Plagiarism among Students

1. Importance of academic writing

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Knowledge of academic writing is important to students as it leads to better grades. First, English courses require students to know different academic papers like research papers, coursework, case studies, term papers, essays, and article reviews. Also, academic writing comes in different formats like APA, Chicago, MLA, and Harvard, and students should know how to format papers. Citations are as well of importance where students have to understand how to do in-text citations and references. Besides, adherence to grammatical obligations is important in academic writing because it helps in an understudying of the information written. Lastly, avoiding plagiarism is an essential practice in academic writing as it helps citation of all sources used in academic writing.

2. Pick the question that interests you the most. What do you already know about this topic? Attach additional sheets of notes to this handout as needed.

The question that interests me is: How is plagiarism avoided in academic writing? My understanding of plagiarism is that it involves using borrowed information from other sources without crediting authors. Also, plagiarism is one of the major problems faced by undergraduate students today.

Additional Notes

Plagiarism is a fraud in academic writing because it involves stealing ideas or words of other authors. Original ideas of a writer have consideration as intellectual property under the protection of copyright laws. Plagiarism occurs in various ways like taking a person's work, failure to credit someone's ideas or words, and offering wrong information about quotation sources. Plagiarism is avoidance by citing sources to acknowledge borrowed ideas or words.

3. Who can you ask for more information or ideas? List ideas below and pick one or two of those people to chat to informally. Attach your notes from that conversation to this handout.

More information on the subject of plagiarism in academic writing can come from one of the university lecturers. During the conversation with the lecturer, listed below are the ideas captured on the topic of plagiarism.

• Plagiarism occurs mostly in papers done by undergraduate students
• Plagiarism is one of the major reasons why students score poorly.
• Universities have come up with mechanisms to assist learners to write plagiarism free papers.

Additional Notes from the Conversation

In a conversation with the university lecturer, the responded insisted that most of the students score poorly in their subjects because of plagiarism. The professor also reported that universities have come up with mechanisms like the use of plagiarism checkers before submitting assignments as a way of helping learners to write original papers. The lecturer also said plagiarism is high among undergraduate learners.

4. How can you narrow this topic in a reasonable way? Can you focus on a particular program, pathway, or student group to keep your essay more focused?

Narrowing down to the topic can occur by using the information gathered on the topic of plagiarism. From the information above, the topic narrows down with a focus on how to avoid plagiarism among undergraduate students.

5. On a blank sheet of paper, freewrite for fifteen minutes about your topic. Read through and highlight anything approaching a thesis statement. Attach those notes to this handout. Reflect on your understanding of what makes a strong thesis and claim, and then write your tentative thesis statement in the space below

Free Written Notes

Plagiarism is a fraud that occurs when a writer borrows ideas or words without crediting the author. Authors' words or ideas are their intellectual property that requires protection by copyright laws, therefore, in academic writing students should avoid plagiarism. Plagiarism is one of the problems facing undergraduate studies in higher learning institutions. The main cause of plagiarism by undergraduate learners is the failure to credit authors after using their ideas and words. Plagiarism has affected the performance of learners negatively causing students to perform poorly in their subjects. In solving the problem, universities have come up with mechanisms like the use of plagiarism checkers like Turnitin to check the plagiarism percentage of assignments before submission to lecturers. In spite of the efforts provided by learning institutions, plagiarism is still one of the major causes why undergraduate students to perform poorly.

Thesis Statement

From the information given above, a thesis statement is: Avoiding plagiarism will help undergraduate students to perform better in their examinations.

Section 2: Annotated Bibliography.

M.M, Raihanah et al. "Developing a Critical Response, Avoiding Plagiarism among Undergraduate Students". Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol 18, 2011, pp. 517-521. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.05.075

The article aims at assessing mechanisms used to avoid plagiarism cases among undergraduate students. The authors apply the development of a critical response in assisting learners at the undergraduate levels to write plagiarism free papers. The study used students from the University Kebangsaan in Malaysia from the department of languages and linguistics. The research methodology used in the study was the use of face to face workshops where students were participating in writing activities using published materials as sources. The research findings showed that the major problem faced by learners was an inability to paraphrase and summarizing information from the provided published materials.

Analysis indicates that the article is relevant to the research topic as it shows an investigation on how to avoid plagiarism through summarizing and paraphrasing. The respondents in the study are undergraduate students thus indicating the validity of data collected. The information is applicable in the current learning system because the article is up to date.

Smedley, Alison et al. "An Intervention Aimed At Reducing Plagiarism in Undergraduate Nursing Students." Nurse Education in Practice, vol 15, no. 3, 2015, pp. 168-173. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2014.12.003.

The article aim was to assess an intervention that may help learners to avoid plagiarism in their writing. The study focused on checking on the awareness and understanding of plagiarism among nursing learners. There was the use of quantitative research in the study using nursing students at Sydney nursing college in Australia. The findings of the study showed almost 80 % learners have no understanding and awareness of what constitutes plagiarism. Consequently, the article recommends for the need to educate students on ways of avoiding plagiarism and academic integrity.

Analysis of the article reveals that the paper answers the research topic by stressing on the need for creating understanding and awareness of academic integrity as a way of avoiding plagiarism. Since the authors answer the research topic, information from the article is applicable in solving the problem of plagiarism among undergraduates. The article's year of publication is recent thus indicating that the paper is up to date. Data collected is valid by the use of an appropriate research sample who are undergraduate students pursuing nursing. Though the article has several strengths, there is a weakness of limited information on data analysis and presentation.

Stoesz, Brenda M., and Anastassiya Yudintseva. "Effectiveness of Tutorials For Promoting Educational Integrity: A Synthesis Paper". International Journal for Educational Integrity, vol 14, no. 1, 2018. Springer Nature America, Inc, doi: 10.1007/s40979-018-0030-0.

The article aims at analyzing the effectiveness of using tutorials to promote educational integrity. The focus of the paper is to check how tutorials help learners to avoid plagiarism and cheating as the major academic dishonesty acts. The research method used in the study was qualitative where the research team organized face to face workshops to analyze the level of academic integrity among students. Data analysis involved the use of a Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument. The results of the study showed that face to face is the most effective way of instructing students on academic integrity.

The article answers the research topic by assessing effective intervention for academic integrity. Since avoiding plagiarism is one of the acts of academic integrity, the article is relevant for use in the chosen research topic. The article has a strong background basis on the research topic as it used a wide range of references from 1995 to 2016. The use of a qualitative research approach is applicable in the study as it reveals the real perception of respondents on the subject on academic integrity. Also, the article is up to date thus applicable in the current learning system.

Works Cited

M.M, Raihanah et al. "Developing a Critical Response, Avoiding Plagiarism among Undergraduate Students". Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, vol 18, 2011, pp. 517-521. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.05.075

Smedley, Alison et al. "An Intervention Aimed At Reducing Plagiarism in Undergraduate Nursing Students." Nurse Education in Practice, vol 15, no. 3, 2015, pp. 168-173. Elsevier BV, doi:10.1016/j.nepr.2014.12.003.

Stoesz, Brenda M., and Anastassiya Yudintseva. "Effectiveness of Tutorials For Promoting Educational Integrity: A Synthesis Paper". International Journal for Educational Integrity, vol 14, no. 1, 2018. Springer Nature America, Inc, doi: 10.1007/s40979-018-0030-0.