IS IT PLAGIARISM?
PLAGIARISM ANECDOTES
Link Elementary School

Plagiarism: What It is and How to Recognize and Avoid It   

Read each anecdote, determine if it is plagiarism and explain what the student should have done to avoid plagiarism.

1.      Joseph copies an article about Pearl Harbor from online The World Book Encyclopedia and pastes it into a Word document. He types a heading on it and hands this in as his report.

2.      Kathy has to write a report on Pearl Harbor. Her friend says she has a research paper about that topic from last year, which she can use. Kathy puts a new cover on it with her name and turns it in to the teacher.

3.      Sam goes to the library and takes books out on the Pearl Harbor attacks because he has do write a report for Social Studies. He takes notes and writes a report about the event in his own words. He does not give credit for the resources he used.

4.      Andrew locates an magazine article in EBSCO's Primary Search on Searchasaurus about Pearl Harbor. He copies the article word for word for his report. He writes a bibliography giving credit for the magazine article he used.

5.      Amy uses an encyclopedia article, a nonfiction book, a magazine article and two Internet sites to research her topic on Pearl Harbor. She takes notes in her own words when reading about this topic. When writing the research paper, she writes about how the attacks occurred without the USA knowing about it before hand. Amy includes a bibliography of all her sources.

6.      Robert finds a term paper web site on the Internet. He searches "Pearl Harbor" and finds 8 reports about this topic. He orders one of them for $25.00 and hands it in as his own work.