BBI2424 ACADEMIC WRITING/LECTURE NOTES 4/WEEK 7-8

LECTURE NOTES 4
AVOIDING PLAGIARISM

Definition of Plagiarism:

The main difficulty that students face is that they are expected:

To show that they have read the principal experts on a subject by giving
citations
To explain these ideas in their own words and come to their own original
conclusions.

There are several reasons why students must avoid plagiarism:

Copying the work of others will not help you develop your own
understanding
To show that you understand the rules of the academic community
Plagiarism is easily detected by teachers and computer software
It may lead to failing a course or even having to leave college

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Acknowledging sources:

Author

Date

Title

Smith, M.

(2009)

Power and the

State

Place of
publication
Basingstoke

Publisher
Palgrave
Macmillan

The citation makes it clear to the reader that you have read Smith and borrowed this
idea from him. This reference gives the reader the necessary information to find the
source if the reader needs more details.

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Degrees of plagiarism:
Although plagiarism essentially means copying somebody elses work, it is not
always easy to define. Working with a partner, consider the following academic
situations and decide if they are plagiarism.

This exercise shows that plagiarism can be accidental. For example in situation (10)
above, when the authors name is misspelt, is technically plagiarism but really
carelessness. In situation (9) your teacher may have encouraged you to discuss in
groups, and then write an essay on your own, in which case it will not be plagiarism.
Self-plagiarism is also theoretically possible, as in situation (7). It can be difficult to
decide what is general or common knowledge (6) but you can always try asking
colleagues.

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Avoiding plagiarism by summarising and paraphrasing:

Quotations should not be over-used, hence you must learn to paraphrase and
summarise in order to include other writers ideas in your work. This will demonstrate
your understanding of a text to your teachers.
Paraphrasing invloves re-writing a text so that the language is substantially
different while the content stays the same.
Summarising means reducing the length of a text but retaining the main
points.
Normally, both skills are used at the same time. You will learn these skills in detail
when you begin learning about summarising and paraphrasing.

Practice:
Read the following text and compare the five paragraphs below, which use ideas and
information from it. Decide which are plagiarised and which are acceptable, and give
your reasons in the table.

Railway Manias
In 1830 there was a few dozens miles railways in all the world, chiefly consisting of
the line from Liverpool to Manchester. By 1840 there were over 4,500 miles, by 1850
over 23,500. Most of them were projected in a few bursts of speculative frenzy
known as the railway manias of 1835-1837 and especially in 1844-1847. Most of
them were built in large part with British capital, British iron, machines and knowhow. These investment booms appear irrational because in fact few railways were
much more profitable to the investor than other forms of enterprise, most yielded
quite modest profits and many none at all: in 1855 the average interest on capital
sunk in the British railways was a mere 3.7 per cent.
(Adapted from the Age of Revolution by Eric Hobsbawm, p.45)

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Plagiarised or acceptable?
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

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LECTURE NOTES 4
CITING SOURCES & QUOTING EVIDENCE
In-Text Citations

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Special Citation Situations:

1. Quotations

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2. Idea Taken from More Than One Source

3. Unknown Author

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4. Groups as Authors

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5. Source with More Than One Author

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6. Indirect Source

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Writing the Reference Page

Documenting your sources includes both citing sources within your paper and on a
reference page. The list of your references is the second of the two-part
documentation process. The format of information in the reference list corresponds
to the citations within your paper.

General Formating Guidelines For APA Reference Lists

APA Reference List Formats for Specific Types of Sources

Each type of source has specific rules for how it should appear on a reference page.
Go to the Purdue University Online Writing Lab at https://owl.english.purdue.edu/
owl/resource/560/01/ for more information about formats for sources.

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LECTURE NOTES 4
CITATION: REPORTING VERBS
What are reporting verbs and when should I use them?
Academic writing requires you to use citations to refer to the original source when
you have used someone elses ideas or concepts in your writing. One of the most
common ways to incorporate these citations into your writing is to use reporting
verbs to present the information.
In addition to helping you to avoid plagiarising others work, reporting verbs help you
to strengthen your argument and to help the reader understand the relevance of
the sources you are using in your writing.
Below is a table of other useful reporting verbs that you might use with citations.
Please note, however, that these verbs are not all interchangeable. Before selecting
a verb, it is vital that you carefully read the source and clearly understand the
authors claim(s). When you have chosen a verb, ask yourself whether that is really
what the author intended. You must make sure that you report others work
accurately.

The APA style emphasises the use of the simple present tense or present perfect
tense when you are discussing an authors ideas or writing.
For example:
Harrison evaluates
White demonstrates
Lee has suggested
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There are certain conventions to follow when citing someones work. Words like
says, tells, asks are normally used in oral conversation but are not appropriate
in formal academic writing. The following table illustrates some appropriate words to
use for reporting the work of others.
When you mention a published work for the first time, you can use the following
basic patterns:

For the second or subsequent mentions of your sources in your paraphrase of a

linked point, you can use these patterns:

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References:
Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Swales, J., & Feak, C. (1994). Academic writing for graduate students. Ann Arbor, MI: University of
Michigan Press.

.
PRACTICE:
Choose one of the reported verbs suggested to complete the citations below.
state
suggest/identify
claim
1. Atrill et al. (2009) _____________ that the ultimate objective of accounting is
to provide information in reports which can be used by internal and external
decision-makers".
lists
suggests/identifies
highlights
2. Bronson (2011) _____________ three questions to which external decision
makers need answers.
argues
defines
describes/outlines
3. Alan (2007) _____________ the users of special purpose reports as "users
who have specialised needs and who possess the authority to obtain
information to meet those needs".
claims
states
suggests
4. Armstrong (2004) _____________ that historical cost accounting has "passed
its use-by date".
propose
say
argue
5. In their study on acculturation, Birman, Sharpe, and Angeles (2004)
___________ a variety of solutions to the current problem facing Australian
cities such as Melbourne and Sydney, that of ghettoisation (p. 77).

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