Brown Bag Workshops, Fall 2008
(in Humanities shared faculty lounge)
Wed. 10/15--Ron Overton:
"The I-Search Essay"
Wed. 10/22--Astrid Wimmer:
"An Option for Teaching Analysis: The Zones Workshop"
Wed. 11/5--Richard Buch:
"Writing Across the Curriculum: Making the Connection"
Wed. 11/12--Rita Nezami:
"Bringing Visual Rhetoric to the Classroom"
Plagiarism
What is plagiarism?
There's nothing wrong with using the words or thoughts of others or getting their help, indeed it is good to do so, so long as you explicitly acknowledge your debt. It IS plagiarism when you:
- copy without quotation marks or paraphrase without acknowledgment from someone else's writing
- use someone else's facts or ideas without acknowledging them.
- hand in work for one course that you handed in for credit for another course without the permission of both instructors.
When you use published words, data, or thoughts, you should footnote your use. See our utilities page for help with proper citation of various sources.When you use the words or ideas of friends or classmates, you should thank them in an end-note (e.g., "I am grateful to my friend so-and-so for the argument in the third paragraph.") If friends just give you reactions but no suggestions, you need not acknowledge that help in print (though it is gracious to do so).You can strengthen your paper by using material by others--so long as you acknowledge your use, and so long as you use that material as a building block for your own thinking rather than a substitute for it.The academic and scientific world depends on people using the work of others for their own work. Dishonesty destroys the possibility of working together as colleagues. Faculty and researchers don't advance knowledge by passing off others' work as their own. Students don't learn by copying what they should think out on their own.Therefore, the university insists that instructors report every case of plagiarism to the Academic Judiciary Committee (which keeps records of all cases). The recommended penalty for plagiarism is failure for the course.Unintentional plagiarism is still plagiarism. Now that you have received this memo, you cannot plead ignorance. Therefore, if you have any questions about the proper acknowledgment of help, be sure to ask your instructor.Instructors in WRT 102 will not accept papers unless they are accompanied by all notes and drafts. When the assignment is to revise a paper handed in previously, you may not write on a new topic without prior permission from the instructor.
For more information about academic dishonesty, see the Academic Judiciary.