Plagiarism   Tags: citation, plagiarism  

Cedar Rapids Campus Library
       E-mail
       Phone: 319-398-5697
       Toll-free 866-452-8504

Iowa City Campus Library
       E-mail
       Phone: 319-887-3613
                     319-887-3612
 

Kirkwood students are responsible for authenticating any assignment submitted to an instructor. If asked, you must be able to produce proof that the assignment you submit is actually your own work. Therefore, we recommend that you engage in a verifiable working process on assignments. Keep copies of all drafts of your work, make photocopies of research materials, write summaries of research materials, hang onto Writing Center receipts, keep logs or journals of your work on assignments and papers, and save drafts or versions of assignments under individual file names on your computer.
The inability to authenticate your work, should an instructor request it, is sufficient ground for failing the assignment.

Source: Page 21, 2012-2013 Kirkwood Student Handbook. Learn more about Kirkwood's policy on cheating and plagiarism on page 21 of the 2012-2013 Student Handbook.

What is plagiarism?
According to Webster, to plagiarize is "to steal or pass off the ideas or words of another as one s own . . . to use created productions without crediting the source… to commit literary theft . . . to present as new original an idea or product derived from an existing source.”

What are you responsible for as Kirkwood students?
Kirkwood Students are responsible for authenticating any assignment submitted to an instructor. If asked, you must be able to produce proof that the assignment you submit is actually your own work.

How can you prove that you are not plagiarizing?
Engage in a verifiable working process on assignments. Keep copies of all drafts of your work, make photocopies of research materials, write summaries of research materials, hang onto Writing Center receipts, keep logs or journals of your work on assignments and papers, learn to save drafts of versions of assignments under individual file names on computer or diskette, etc.

What are the consequences of plagiarizing?
The inability to authenticate your work, should an instructor request it, is a sufficient ground for failing the assignment.

Are there other consequences?
Each plagiarism incident is reported to the Vice President for Academic Affairs office. A record of the incident is kept. If you are caught plagiarizing 3 times, you risk expulsion from school.

Source: Kirkwood Student Handbook

1) Are you using your own independent material (i.e., material that reflects your own thoughts, opinion)?

□ Yes            □ No

• If Yes, OK. If No, you need to CITE.

2) Are you using common knowledge (i.e., something that everyone knows)?

□ Yes            □ No

• If Yes, OK. If No, you need to CITE.

3) Are you using someone else’s independent material (i.e., material NOT your own thoughts)?

□ Yes            □ No

• If Yes, you need to CITE. If No, OK.

4) Do all the quotations exactly match their source?

□ Yes □ No

• If Yes, well done! If No, you need to make sure they are correctly matched.

5) Have you used your own words and sentence structures for every paraphrase and summary related to another’s work?

□ Yes □ No

• If Yes, well done! If No, you need to make sure you use quotation marks around the author’s/authors’ words.

6) Have you included an in-text citation for every paraphrase and summary related to another’s work?

□ Yes □ No

• If Yes, well done! If No, you need to make sure you create an in-text citation for each reference to another’s work, even when you put that idea into your own words.

7) Does your list of References include all the sources you have mentioned in your paper?

□ Yes □ No

• If Yes, well done! If No, you need to make sure all of the sources you mention in your paper are listed on the References page.