Plagiarism & Citation Assignment

Directions: Post all answers to the questions below to your personal blog by the stated due date.


Put yourself in your professor's shoes. Sometimes students hand in work that just doesn't look like student writing! Your job for the next three questions is to find out whether all or part of these examples were cut and pasted from a website. If so, paste the url of the website that was plagiarized below the writing sample. If not, just write "not plagiarized."

Note: you can google an exact phrase by putting it in " " (quotation marks) in the search box.

1. Student writes:
"Athough electronic health records can save health professionals time and cut hospital costs, implementing these systems will be a challenge. Many hospitals cannot afford them, and physician resistance and the lack of universal standards are also reasons cited by hospitals for not instituting these systems. President Obama’s economic stimulus package, which includes 19 billion for e-health records, might be enough to overcome the barriers to adopting these technologies”
not plaguarized

2. Student writes:
"The controversial issue of global warming has troubled society for many years now. Although some believe that it is a hoax, others view global warming as the greatest challenge of our time. While global warming is a complex issue that some have used to manipulate consumers, it must be taken seriously as the bulk of scientific evidence points to the reality of this phenomenon, which can dramatically alter our climate.”
not plaguarized

3. Student writes:
“Twitter, a so-called micro-blogging service has taken off over the past year. Users may post messages about their status, their moods, their location and other tidbits on Twitter. Most popular among young adults, Twitter has also been used by savvy marketers to inform users about products, and even by journalists who use it as a quick method of sharing story coverage.”
not plaguarized

Part 2

Use the APA Citation Guidelines to put all the elements of the scrambled citations in the right place and make correct APA style citations.

4. Avoiding plagiarism. Retrieved January 13, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database. 28(3), 439-446. Burkill, S., & Abbey, C. Journal of Geography in Higher Education. (2004).

What kind of citation is this? Article

Burkill, S. & Abbey, C. (2004). Avoiding plagiarism. Journal of Geography of Higher Education, 28( 3), 439-446. Retrieved January 30, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database


5. (2006). My stroke of insight: A Brain scientist’s personal journey. Taylor, J.B.
New York: Viking.

What kind of citation is this? Book

Taylor, J. (2004). My stroke of insight: A brain scientists personal journey. New York: Vikings

6. Retrieved March 27, 2009 from http://auto.howstuffworks.com/ngv.htm How
natural-gas vehicles work. (n.d.). Harris, W.

What kind of citation is this? webpage

Harris, W. (n.d.). How natural-gas vehicles work. Retrieved , March 27, 2009 from hhtp://auto.howstuffworks.com /ngv.htm

7. Logan, UT: College Reading Association. (pp. 51-54). In M.B. Sampson, P.E. Linder, F. Falk-Ross, M. Foote, & S. Szabo (Eds.), (2007). Stroud, B. Multiple Literacies in the 21st Century Writing about African Americans, their communities, and their quilts.

What kind of citation is this? book

M. Sampson, P. Linder, F. Falk-Ross, M. Foote, & S. (Eds.) Stroud, B. (2007). Multiple literacies in the 21st century writing about african americans, their communities, and their quilts. (pp. 51-54). Logan, UT: College Reading Association


Part 3

Read the paragraphs below. Bold or italicize the sentences that are NOT common knowledge and therefore need a citation. Insert the in-text citation using the information you’ll find in the reference list entry for each paragraph.

8. Global warming is the increase in the Earth’s temperature as the result of greenhouse gases trapped in the atmosphere. Because of global warming, the average temperature of the Earth could rise as much as 8 degrees, causing sea levels to rise up to 23 inches over this century. (Zakaria,2007). I believe that we all have a responsibility to help prevent global warming. A recent report suggests that just by using more efficient appliances, we can have a significant impact on carbon emissions that affect global warming. (Zakaria,2007).

Zakaria, F. (2007, February 19). Global warming: Get used to it. Newsweek, 149(8), 43. Retrieved December 20, 2007, from Academic Search Premier database.

9. It’s no secret that the American population is getting fatter, in spite of our cultural obsession with fitness. Public health officials have expressed concern that the obesity “epidemic” is striking Americans of all ages, from very young children to older adults, and are looking to community groups to conduct outreach with at-risk groups. (Turner, 2007) Through such efforts we can only hope for a healthier future.

Turner, T. (2007). Organizations present options to fight obesity. New York Amsterdam News, 98(52), 27-36. Retrieved December 20, 2007, from Academic Search Premier database.

10. Cancer is certainly a terrible disease, and researchers are hard at work attempting to find treatments and cures. However, it can be difficult for patients to figure out what is a legitimate treatment and what is the modern-day equivalent of snake oil, and it can be a source of stress to already burdened patients figuring out what is real medicine. Lowering the levels of copper in the body, eating a specialized organic, vegetarian, macrobiotic diet, and an Irish light therapy are just the kinds of experimental treatments that may have patients and their families scratching their heads. (Altshul, 2003).

Altshul, S. (2003).
Tomorrow’s cancer cures. Prevention, 55(3), 60. Retrieved December 20, 2007, from Academic Search Premier database.

Part 4

Practice paraphrasing the following passages. Remember, it is not enough to rearrange the sentence a little and change a few words here and there. Starting from scratch, restate the idea with a completely different sentence structure and completely different words. Don’t forget your citation!

11. To ensure that the students use high-quality information when writing a term paper, professors might require students to find credentials for the authors of Web sites they cite. Figuring out who authored Web content, their backgrounds, motivations, or points of view may constitute a good lesson in critical thinking in itself. Teaching students how to critique the quality of Web sites and evaluate the quality and accuracy of information will help them in their post-academic futures.
Embleton, K., & Helfer, D. S. (2007, June). The plague of plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Searcher 15(6), 23-26.

When students do a high-quality writing, they need to citation others' work. It is necessary to mark the author and other basic information when we do cite. To learn this skill is important for student's study.
Embleto, K., & Helfer, D.S.( 2007, June). The plague of plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Searcher 15(6), 23-26

12. Scientists have been searching for the cause of Alzheimer's disease for more than 100 years, and during that time, theories about why brain cells are destroyed in the course of the illness have come and gone. One of the newer and more unorthodox theories posits that Alzheimer's may actually be a form of diabetes. Some experts have even taken to calling the brain disease type 3 diabetes, as distinct from the insulin-dependent (type 1) and adult-onset (type 2) varieties of the condition.
Arnst, C. (2007, December 17). Is Alzheimer’s a form of diabetes? Business Week 4063, 54-55. Retrieved January 14, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database.

In the past centuries, experts are doing research in Alzheimer's disease, and point out it could be form out of new a type of diabetes. As distinct from the insulin-dependent( type 1) and adult-onset(type 2) varieties fo the condition. (Arnst,2007)

13. According to Leaving Women Behind: Modern Families, Outdated Laws, the regulations that govern private pensions did not contemplate the influx of women into the labor market and therefore are not suited to the way modern women live. "Because women live longer than men, they are more likely to suffer the defects of our retirement systems," asserts co-author Kim Strassel. "Because the laws governing private pensions weren't designed for the modern woman, many have little retirement security. If reforms are not made soon, a growing number of women will be denied their 'golden years.'"
Outdated laws hurt women. (2006, August). USA Today Magazine, 135(2735), 9-10. Retrieved January 14, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database.

According to Leaving Women Behind: Women were not expected to be such an integrate part of the labor system; women outlive men to a good degree, so women may not get good retirement benefits. These benefits were arranged for men and women were not incorporated at the time of implementation.Outdated laws hurt women. (2006, August). USA Today Magazine, 135(2735), 9-10. Retrieved January 14, 2008, from Academic Search Premier database.