Timeline for Is it ok to use several pages of material from a single source to write my thesis? I will cite the source of course
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
12 events
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| Dec 13, 2022 at 23:04 | comment | added | Lodinn | I feel pretty strongly we should be putting more emphasis on the constructive perspective. "Avoiding plagiarizing" mindset is what leads to connections between paraphrasing and plagiarism, and I argue this is already not the most ethical stance: we should strive to do the right thing, not try to avoid being caught doing the wrong thing. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 22:58 | comment | added | Lodinn | @ScottSeidman Taking groceries home without paying money is theft. Ergo, there is a relationship between shopping and crime. This is the level of relationship you claim to be important, and I'm saying it is a very problematic way of thinking about the issue. In practice, it sometimes equates to telling people "Hey, if you go to the store, you should pay for what you buy. How much? See this cashier, if they do not call the cops you are in the clear". This is what students actually hear: plagiarism is bad, but you can use paraphrasing and attribution to avoid the big stick. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 19:55 | comment | added | Scott Seidman | Huh??? I suggest nothing as a motivation for paraphrasing. The only assertion I've made is that paraphrasing and plagiarism are not unrelated, as paraphrasing without citation is plagiarism. You stated, in your first sentence that they're almost unrelated. I don't agree. There are dozens of hits, like scribbr.com/frequently-asked-questions/…. that show a pretty clear relationship. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 18:30 | comment | added | Lodinn | @ScottSeidman Attribution without paraphrasing is not plagiarism. Paraphrasing with attribution is not plagiarism. Thus, paraphrasing is not relevant for determining whether something is plagiarism or not - it is the proper, sufficient attribution that matters. Your argument rests on the line of thinking I find odd: it provides a wrong motivation for paraphrasing all too easily. Doing so just to avoid charges of plagiarism is an attempt to hack the indicator of our writing's health. Goodhart's law, if you will. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 17:54 | comment | added | Scott Seidman | I'm not sure I understand this answer. Paraphrasing without attribution is plagiarism, so the idea that paraphrasing and plagiarism are "almost unrelated" seems inaccurate to me. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 17:05 | history | edited | Lodinn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 13, 2022 at 16:09 | comment | added | Lodinn | Take it with a grain of salt, however - the closest I got to original research in humanities was when we briefly discussed publishing my commentary for philosophical course requirements with our professor. It was drawing from a select few sources, but still the structure was my commentary interspersed with quotations or paraphrasings of the original text, not the other way around. In STEM, it is almost always summarizing, you should not just take excerpts from a textbook you consider to be great and add no value. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 16:04 | comment | added | Lodinn | @Minttea As long as it is clear what part of it is original thought, it should be fine plagiarism-wise - again, less about technicalities and more about clearly communicating statements along the lines of "this section of my work deals with the review of the existing material". If it is for a thesis, like Buffy says, asking your advisor is the best bet. My understanding is that taking long chunks of information from a single source without adding your own commentary is bad even in humanities, and is surely bad in STEM. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 15:14 | comment | added | Minttea | I have not copied the exact words, I have paraphrased long chunks of information from a few pages, and applied to my research. I have cited the author of the work as well as the authors of the citations in the work I used. Eg: (Smith qtd by Roberts ) Is it technically wrong? | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 15:04 | history | edited | Lodinn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Dec 13, 2022 at 15:00 | comment | added | Lodinn | @Buffy Interesting, I thought I worded the second sentence strongly enough. Perhaps I should add a clarification to avoid making this pitfall even worse. Thank you. | |
| Dec 13, 2022 at 14:40 | history | answered | Lodinn | CC BY-SA 4.0 |