Writing scholarly papers is a tough business; when you plagiarize someone else's work, you not only risk getting a bad grade-you could be expelled. Avoiding Plagiarism helps students to write better papers and avoid mark deduction due to improper citing and referencing. Examples using APA, Chicago, and Harvard citation styles are examined and made easy. Advance Praise for Avoiding Plagiarism "Unlike other resources in this area, Dr. Wong's book provides additional information on tools for similarity detection and citation generation. Educators will find this book a valuable resource." -Professor Wing Lam, Dean, U21Global, Singapore "Knowing how to cite and reference are fundamental skills which are missing in many graduate students. This book provides those 'missing' skills in an easy, innovative and entertaining way." -Richard Anthony, Indonesia "This book provides useful information considering all the queries that may pop-up in a student's mind while attempting to provide citations and references." -Tasneem Tailor, India Dr.
AVOIDING PLAGIARISM
Write Better Papers in APA, Chicago, and Harvard Citation StylesBy Ken K. WongiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 Ken K. Wong
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-7628-3 Contents
About the Author.............................................................viiForeword.....................................................................xvPreface......................................................................xviiAcknowledgement..............................................................xixChapter 1 – Introduction...............................................1Chapter 2 – Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism.........................3Chapter 3 – What are In-text Citations?................................12Chapter 4 – What are References?.......................................15Chapter 5 – Online Citation Generator and Software.....................19Chapter 6 – APA Style..................................................28Chapter 7 – Chicago Style..............................................46Chapter 8 – Harvard Style..............................................66Epilogue.....................................................................85Bibliography.................................................................87
Chapter One
Introduction
What This Book is All About
"When in Rome, do as the Romans do." (St. Ambrose, 387 A.D.)
Academic writing is different from your day-to-day business report or blog writing. There are certain rules that you must follow or else your professor will deduct marks from your work. Furthermore, academic journals require authors to follow a particular writing style for their manuscript submissions. Unfortunately, most university students are not being taught this subject during their undergraduate studies. As a result, I am dedicating this book to help you master the art of academic writing.
First, know that there are different kinds of citing and referencing styles. In the field of business, the common ones are APA, Chicago and Harvard citation styles. I will cover each of them with examples later in this book. How about MLA, Oxford (documentary-note), and Vancouver (URM)? I am not going to talk about the MLA and Oxford styles because they are only common in Humanities courses such as history, philosophy, language and arts. I am also not going to spend time on the Vancouver style because it is mostly used in the biomedical field. If you absolutely want to learn about these citation styles, please visit the following web sites:
- MLA: Modern Language Association (www.mla.org)
- Oxford: http://www.deakin.edu.au/current-students/study-support/ study-skills/handouts/oxford-docnote.php
- Vancouver: International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org)
In the next chapter, I will discuss the issue of plagiarism and give you some tips to avoid the problem. Then, the concepts of in-text citations and referencing will be introduced to you in great detail. In chapter 5, I will show you some online citation tool and software that you can use for academic writing. Finally, selected citation and referencing examples using APA, Chicago and Harvard styles are presented.
Chapter Two
Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism
What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism refers to the use of others' ideas and presenting them as your own. It is intellectual theft and is considered a serious academic offence. The most common type of plagiarism is a direct "Copy and Paste" action. For instance, copying the content from a book and making a book of a similar title, is definitely an act of plagiarism. But how about copying just a sentence or two? Well, if you cite my sentences properly using a quotation format, there should be no problem.
The smart students will put up their hands and ask, "Dr. Wong, what if I paraphrase your sentence?" In my opinion, this is still reverse engineering because you are taking another's thoughts as your own. Remember, your professor is interested in seeing your critical thinking skills so instead of paraphrasing others' points, why don't you critique their thoughts and add in your own analysis? The brave students would even ask me questions like "Dr. Wong, how many words can I copy directly without being caught by those anti-plagiarism software?" My answer: 5 words.
While some students intentionally plagiarize others' work to cheat, I believe that there are many students out there who commit plagiarism and related academic offences unintentionally; that is, they commit plagiarism simply because they do not know how to write properly. Common mistakes include:
1. Incorrect in-text citations and references: the publication year is wrong and the author's name is misspelled.
2. Incomplete in-text citations and references: this often happens in a long paragraph where multiple thoughts from different authors are mentioned.
3. Lack of reference: student forgets to provide the corresponding reference after including the in-text citation.
4. Assemblage: student spends too much time in making reference to others' thoughts (although with proper citing/referencing) and makes little original contribution.
5. Self-plagiarism: students recycle their own papers that were previously submitted in other classes.
What you need to remember is that professors have tools to spot out plagiarism not only in paper assignments, but also in discussion board contributions. Your work will be compared to millions of web pages and homework database among most universities in just a matter of seconds, so do not risk committing plagiarism!
The Problem of Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V
The plagiarism issue is a difficult topic to discuss with students. This is because some students, especially those who come from certain countries where their educational system is not that well developed, have never been taught about this issue in school. In some cases, students have heard about it but because they have never seen any actual enforcement of the school policy (e.g. student dismissal), they believe that "Plagiarism is not a problem until I get caught!". Students go ahead and plagiarize without realizing the seriousness of such academic offence.
In 2010, I posted a blog entry at the education section of the Asian Correspondent web site to discuss the issue of plagiarism. Many students have found my article useful so let me share it with you:
Plagiarism is a serious academic offence. The problem is getting bigger and bigger as students can now "extract" information to re-use in their assignments in a matter of seconds. The smart ones know that you're using tools like Turnitin to catch them so they turn to Synonymizer software to do better reverse engineering. To get the students understand the issue of practicing Ctrl-C & Ctrl-V better, I recently acted as a story teller and my MBA students seem to get the message pretty good. Feel free to spread the story if you find it useful: John and Mary enrolled into a cooking class in a prestigious culinary school. After learning all of those fancy cooking techniques for three months, it's time to show off their cooking skills during a tasting event which is also their final examination. They were given the whole afternoon to prepare for their meals at home and bring back their `creation' to school during dinner time. The judges were eager to taste their...
