Evidence Quiz 3 – Good Habits That Let You Avoid the Plagiarism Pit and Quotation Humiliation

Big Dangers of What You May Think of As Small Things. 1

First, If You Don’t Know about “plagiarism,” “half-copy” plagiarism or “patchwriting”. 1

Second, the Most Brain Basic Tip to Avoid the Plagiarism Pit—and Also Read More Accurately. 1

Third, the Most Basic Brain Tip to Quote Accurately and to Avoid Quotation Humiliation. 1

If You Are Still Sure You Already Know All about the Rules for Punctuation about Quotations. 1

Self-Test - Jot down on a piece of paper your answers to these questions. 1

Self-Test on Punctuation for Quotations – Grade yourself using these answers. 1

Big Dangers of What You May Think of As Small Things

There are 3 big dangers to plagiarism and also to “half-copy” plagiarism or what is sometimes called “patchwriting” and to incorrect quotations:

1. You will do something that hands to the professor or boss the proof that you cheated or didn’t understand basic rules.
What you submitted is the proof. There are 2 cheap ways professors can prove you cheated or didn’t understand basic rules about cheating:
- Turnitin.
- Grading as I do by placing side by side the source you said you used and your written work.

Tip: You don’t want people to think you cheated so learn the basic rules and good habits.

2. Frequently, you will also misread or assume because you are reading passively. You are just typing words.
Think of it this way: if your brain were a car, it is as though you are sitting in the passenger seat and no one is driving your brain-car.

3. Incorrect quotations—especially where you have changed the meaning—may lower your credibility with professors whose reference you need and also lower your grade. If you are doing something written for a boss and you made these errors, it would lower your chances of keeping your job.

First, If You Don’t Know about “plagiarism,” “half-copy” plagiarism or “patchwriting”

If you are using an author’s words without quotation marks (“”), you are presenting yourself as the author of those words. Citing the page is not enough. It is not just copying sections of an author’s words that can put you in danger. You are also in danger if you are taking phrases from the author and just moving them around or swapping out a few words that you think are synonyms.

Scroll down to Reference: Pages 744-747 The Bedford Handbook on the Chicago Manual of Style - the standard for history.

Look at the examples on page 746 and then at acceptable use on page 747.

If you need help in understanding this, just ask.

Second, the Most Brain Basic Tip to Avoid the Plagiarism Pit—and Also Read More Accurately

The moment you start to type, close the source.

If you can’t figure out what to type, then open the source.

Think of it as an exercise program for your brain, not just your fingers.

Or better learn to read and figure things out and then write. (If you don’t have a method, try this one that uses the 5 Ws chart.

Third, the Most Basic Brain Tip to Quote Accurately and to Avoid Quotation Humiliation

Click here for additional tips. Do make sure that you have also not changed the author’s meaning

The rules for showing what you have taken out (…) of the author’s words or put in ([ ]) are complex and for most of us they are not worth learning.

This brain trick lets you be accurate but avoid learning those rules:

Choose 3 to 6 words to quote and change nothing (not an ing or an ed, not a comma, nothing) between the first and the last word.
Put a “ before the first word and a ” after the last word.
Place those words with the “ ”within your sentence.

If something sounds awkward about your sentences, then change your own words—the only words you have a right to change.

Look at all of the words in the source. Be sure the meaning of the source remains in your quotation.

Before you think you know about all of the rules for taking out or inserting, read these 3 Cautions and you should realize that you are safer doing what is above:

Caution 1: If your prior teachers were not looking at the source that you are quoting, they may think you used the correct punctuation. That will not be the case in your future with experts in their fields:

· If an expert in the field that you hope to enter is looking at your quotation, he or she could easily tell that you carefully deleted words to make it look like a famous author supported your argument when that author had not.

· If an instructor is looking side by side at the source you said you used and your words, he or she could easily tell you messed up the author’s words or even the author’s meaning.

Caution 2: You would be ticked if someone said you said something that you didn’t—if that person changed your meaning. You would be ticked if some changed your words so you looked like you could not write a correct sentence. Why do it in your writing?

Caution 3: If a boss or professor saw you as careless enough to do the above, would he or she want to pay money for work or want to write a reference for you?

If You Are Still Sure You Already Know All about the Rules for Punctuation about Quotations

Self-Test - Jot down on a piece of paper your answers to these questions.

1. If you are using a document (such as one of the primary sources in the course) and the authors wanted to signal that they used the author’s words but they deleted a few words that did not change the meaning but made the words briefer, the authors used this punctuation:

a. A comma (,)

b. An ellipsis (…)

c. A pair of double quotation marks (“ ”)