In the video you watched earlier, Mr. Andy Buckton mentions that some students may plagiarize without realizing they've done so. Knowing the common types of plagiarism and what to look out for can help you avoid that situation.
Intentional Plagiarism
Intentional plagiarism is the most well-known type of plagiarism because it is done on purpose and therefore the easiest to identify. Examples of intentional plagiarism include:
Buying a paper online or having someone else write a paper for you
Turning in a paper for one class and then turning in the exact same paper for another class without talking to the instructor first
Cutting and pasting directly from another document or webpage into your own paper
Unintentional Plagiarism
Unintentional plagiarism (plagiarism done without realizing) is easily identifiable by an instructor, but students who are less familiar with the culture of academia can struggle to identify it.
Unintentional plagiarism usually falls into 3 categories. Click the headers below to see a description and examples of these types of plagiarism.
Patchwriting is the Frankenstein's monster of plagiarism. In Mary Shelley's 1818 novel Frankenstein, a medical student named Victor Frankenstein attempts to assemble a perfect man by patching together body parts he stole from the anatomy lab. But famously, it all goes terribly wrong.
Just like Victor Frankenstein, you may be attempting to put together the best paper by patching together phrases and words from sentences that another author used. But beware! When you simply rephrase an author's sentences, your language could remain too close to the vocabulary and/or structure of the original text. You could end up with an awkward, shuffling Frankenstein paper. This type of plagiarism is called patchwriting -- and it's still considered plagiarism even if you cite the original author.
Example
Original author: "A research team from an artificial intelligence lab demonstrated a new robot to a group of computer scientists. They described a one-legged hopping machine that had memory, could learn new instructions, was bred for intelligence, could focus attention, could accept punishment and reward, and even had a personality. No one at the meeting noticed that they were using the vocabulary of human psychology to describe the abilities of a collection of wire, silicon, mechanical joints, and computer code." (Reeves and Nass, 4).
Patchwriting: When an artificial intelligence research team showed a new robot to a group of computer scientists, they used terms of human psychology to show the abilities of the robot's collection of wire and computer code and no one at the meeting realized (Reeves and Nass, 4).
Not patchwriting: In The Media Equation, the authors argue that the way we talk about robots uses the same psychological concepts and language we use when talking about humans (Reeves and Nass, 4).
Tip: Notice how awkward and stiff the patchwriting example is. Would you use a phrase like "the abilities of the robot's collection of wire and computer code" in everyday conversation? Probably not. If you are trying to summarize an author and it's coming across as awkward, you could be accidentally patchwriting.
Citations are how you tell your reader that you're referring to or quoting another author's ideas. Depending on what academic subject or discipline you are in, citation styles can vary. Citation styles include MLA, APA, Chicago, IEEE, and many more. Citing can be done using footnotes, endnotes, or parenthetical notes depending on the citation style. Fortunately, there are many style guides for citations online.
Example
Original author: "A research team from an artificial intelligence lab demonstrated a new robot to a group of computer scientists. They described a one-legged hopping machine that had memory, could learn new instructions, was bred for intelligence, could focus attention, could accept punishment and reward, and even had a personality. No one at the meeting noticed that they were using the vocabulary of human psychology to describe the abilities of a collection of wire, silicon, mechanical joints, and computer code." (Reeves and Nass, 4).
Failure to cite: In the book The Media Equation, the authors give an example about researchers using the "vocabulary of human psychology" to characterize a robot.
Correct citation: In the book The Media Equation, the authors give an example about researchers using the "vocabulary of human psychology" to characterize a robot (Reeves and Nass, 4).
Tip: Even though you used quotations and mentioned the book, you still failed to cite exactly where in the book the quote came from.
If you are using the author's exact words, you must provide quotation marks around those exact words as well as a citation.
Example
Original author: "A research team from an artificial intelligence lab demonstrated a new robot to a group of computer scientists. They described a one-legged hopping machine that had memory, could learn new instructions, was bred for intelligence, could focus attention, could accept punishment and reward, and even had a personality. No one at the meeting noticed that they were using the vocabulary of human psychology to describe the abilities of a collection of wire, silicon, mechanical joints, and computer code." (Reeves and Nass, 4).
Failure to quote: In the book The Media Equation, the authors give an example about researchers using the vocabulary of human psychology to characterize a robot (Reeves and Nass, 4).
Correct citation: In the book The Media Equation, the authors give an example about researchers using the "vocabulary of human psychology" to characterize a robot (Reeves and Nass, 4).
Reeves, Byron and Clifford Nass. The Media Equation: How People Treat Computers, Television, and New Media Like Real People and Places. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein: The 1818 Text, Contexts, Nineteenth-Century Responses, Modern Criticism. Edited by J. Paul Hunter, W.W. Norton, 1996.