Avoiding Plagiarism

Avoiding Plagiarism
Student’s Name
Institution
Avoiding Plagiarism
The text “Avoiding Plagiarism” provides essential information about plagiarism. The document majorly uses conversation to explain aspects of plagiarism. The use of dialogue in the paper is critical because a disturbed student can directly relate to it by putting him/herself in the conversation. The text focuses on explaining the consequences of plagiarism in the American culture. Some of the contents that the document touches on include definition of plagiarism; different types of plagiarism; consequences of plagiarism; ways of avoiding plagiarism and other relevant information as well.
In a conversation between a student and possibly a woman working within the school administration, the latter helps to define plagiarism to the student. The student (Natalie Sanchez) complains of unfair treatment from the tutor who she claims denied her full marks for her work. Bailey Smith uses Turnitin to help the student understand that she had plagiarized the paper. It means that part of the student’s writing was not original. She might have used information from a source without citing the author correctly or entirely. Therefore, from the conversation, Smith has defined plagiarism as the act of taking someone else’s idea and failing to recognize them or cite incorrectly.
The text also covered different actions that can amount to plagiarism. Some of these actions include submitting a fellow student’s writing; offering payment for one’s paper to be done on his/her behalf; providing an article that an individual had used in another class; copying phrases from other sources also known as patchwriting.

Other actions that warrant to plagiarism include failure to cite the source of an idea; inability to use quotation marks on the quoted material; and copy-pasting a media such as a photo without citing the source (Anderson, 2009).
The text has also highlighted some of the consequences accompanying plagiarism. For example, at Excelsior College and most of the institutions in the United States, plagiarism incident is kept as a record for a particular student. A student will be referred to the assistant dean in case he or she repeats similar mistakes in future. In the United States, plagiarism is intolerable. Therefore, even if a student comes from a culture where plagiarism is accepted, he or she has to conform to the academic policies of the United States. Plagiarism is a serious offense and a sign of dishonesty (“Avoiding Plagiarism”). In classroom works, plagiarism is punished by deduction of marks or just allocating zero to the student found guilty of plagiarism. Other instructors can give the student an opportunity to re-do the assignment again. Some harsh consequences may include failing in the course, noting the plagiarized information on a transcript or the student might be expelled from the institution.
The most important part of the text is that it shows how to avoid plagiarism. The first technique is to use quotation marks when quoting the exact words of the owner of the information and citing the quote using a referencing style that the tutor will suggest. However, there is a limit of using quotes. For instance, the document notes that quotes should form less than 10 percent of the paper. Summarizing and paraphrasing ideas are the other means of avoiding plagiarism. Paraphrasing is the process of using information from another source into one’s own words. Summarizing involves the use of information from the source together with one’s ideas.
Therefore, the document has defined plagiarism, mentioned types, consequences of plagiarism, and how to avoid plagiarism.
References
Anderson, I. (2009). Avoiding plagiarism in academic writing. Nursing Standard (through 2013),
23(18), 35.
“Avoiding Plagiarism.” Retrieved from
https://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/ld/resources/study/avoiding-plagiarism