BUILDING AN ARGUMENT PAPERStep 1: Find all research, annotated bibs, and drafts of

your Editorial Assignment

Step 2: Establish a STRONG Thesis

Step 3: Gather Your Sources

Step 4: Organize Your Information

Step 5: Create Your Outline… Annotated Bib and Outline due _____________

Step 6: Draft Your Paper… First draft due _______, peer review

PERSUASIVE VS ARGUMENT

RESEARCH AND PLAGIARISM

INFORMATION COLLECTED FROM TURNITIN.COM2014

PLAGIARISM? CAN WORDS REALLY BE STOLEN?

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own• to use (another's production) without crediting the source• to commit literary theft• to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves stealing someone’s work and lying about it.

According to U.S. law, the answer is yes. The expression of original ideas is considered INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions.

All of the following are considered plagiarism:• turning in someone else's work as your own• copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit• failing to put a quotation in quotation marks• giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation• changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit• copying so many words/ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)

DID YOU KNOW...According to surveys in U.S. News and World Report

80% of "high-achieving" high school students admit to cheating51% of high school students did not believe cheating was wrong95% of cheating high school students said that they had not been detected75% of college students admitted cheating90% of college students didn't believe cheaters would be caughtAlmost 85% of college students said cheating was necessary to get ahead

Professor Donald McCabe, leading expert in academic integrity, in a May 2001 study of over 4500 high school students, found:

72% of students reported one or more instances of serious cheating on written work

15% had submitted a paper obtained in large part from a term paper mill or website

52% had copied a few sentences from a website w/o citing the sourceover 45% admitted to collaborating inappropriately with others on assignments

WHY STUDENTS PLAGIARIZE...Intentional Plagiarism... can I sneak a plagiarized paper past my professor?"

Searching vs. Researching... "busy work" compared to finding the best or most obscure sources.

"But their words are better"... students may also be intimidated by the quality of work found online, thinking their own work cannot compare.

Making the Grade... Students are under enormous pressure from family, peers, and instructors to compete for scholarships, admissions, and, of course, places in the job market.. But your grades won't matter if you don't have the skills to show for them.

"Everyone else is doing it"

WHY “MERCY GIRLS” PLAGIARIZE... Poor Planning... Students are not always the best judges of

how much time their assignments will take.

Unintentional Plagiarism

Citation Confusion... Perhaps the most common reason for inadvertent plagiarism is simply an ignorance of the proper forms of citation.

Troubles with Paraphrasing ... Many students have trouble knowing when they are paraphrasing and when they are plagiarizing. In an effort to make their work seem "more original" by "putting things in their own words," students may often inadvertently plagiarize by changing the original too much or, sometimes, not enough.

"I couldn't find the source"... Students are often sloppy about writing down the bibliographic information of their sources, leaving them unable to properly attribute information when it comes to writing the paper.

EVALUATING YOUR SOURCES

• Should be relevant- does the content apply directly to your topic?

• Should be authoritative- does the author have the necessary expertise or experience to speak authoritatively on this subject?

• not Wikipedia... good starting point, not authoritative

• Must be current- be aware of the date of the source. (you may want to use source that is 20 yrs old if you are discussing the history of a topic, but not if you are discussing a current trend)

• Should be comprehensive- does this source cover all the major issues that you need to discuss in your paper?

• Should be stable- will your readers be able to locate the source is they want to read more?

• Should provide links- does this source help you locate other sources?

WHEN DO I GIVE CREDIT?MUST BE CITED:• Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web

page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium• Information gained through another person (face to face, phone, writing)• When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase• When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials• When you reuse or repost any electronically-available media (images, audio, video, et al)• Bottom line... document any words, ideas, or other productions that originate

somewhere outside of your brain.

DOES NOT NEED CITING:• Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts,

and your own conclusions about a subject• When you are writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments• When you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video, audio, etc.• "Common Knowledge"... you can regard something as common knowledge if you find the

same information in at least 3-55 credible sources. But when in doubt, cite!

INTERNAL (IN-TEXT) CITATIONS• DO NOT END ALL PARAGRAPHS WITH

INTERNAL CITATIONS!!! Your thoughts and ideas should be most prominent and the research should support what you are saying. Do not let the research be dominant!

• Whatever is listed in the parenthesis of the internal citation should match the first words in the Works Cited line.

• If there is duplicated first words, use first words and next different word in parenthetical

• Never, never, never use the Internet address as the internal citation

SOURCES... QUOTING, OR PARAPHRASING, SUMMARIZING?

As you select information from a source, you have one of three methods in which to use it in your paper:1.Quoting- direct language2.Paraphrasing- for shorter passages3.Summarizing- for longer passages

DIRECT QUOTESLet’s use the following citation for the next few pages of examples:

1. Work the quoted passage into the syntax of your sentence (period after the internal citation)Morrison points out that social context prevented the authors of slave narratives “from dwelling too long or too carefully on the more sordid details of their experience” (Morrison).

Morrison, Toni. “The Site of Memory.” Inventing the Truth:

The Art and Craft of Memoir. Ed. William Zinsser, Houghton Miffline, 1987. pg101-124.

DIRECT QUOTE2. Introduce the quoted passage with a sentence and a colon (period after the internal citation)

Commentators have tried to account for the decorum of most slave narratives by discussing social context: “popular taste discouraged the writers from dwelling too long or too carefully on the more sordid details of their experience” (Morrison 109).

3. Set off the quoted passage with an introductory sentence followed by a colon. (period after the internal citation)Toni Morrison, in “The Site of Memory,” explains how social context shaped slave narratives:

No slave society in the history of the world wrote more- or more thoughtfully- about its own enslavement. But whatever the level of eloquence, popular taste discouraged the writers from dwelling too long or too carefully on the more sordid details of their experience (Morrison109).

SUMMARIZING OR PARAPHRASINGSummary of a long quotation (period after the citation)

Award-winning novelist Toni Morrison argues that although slaves wrote many powerful narratives, the context of their enslavement prevented them from telling the whole truth of their lives (Morrison109).

Paraphrase of a short quotation (period after the citation)

Slave narratives sometimes imitated the popular fiction of their era (Morrison).

Multiple sentences summarizing source (period before the citation)

Morrison discusses slave narratives in her recent book. She theorizes that slaves do not portray the truth in its entirety for fear of their lives. Morrison also says that the narratives imitate popular fiction during their era. (Morrison109)

WORKS CITED PAGE• Begin each entry flush with the left margin. Indent each line that follows.

•double spaced

•alphabetical order

• All citations begin with the author’s last name. If there is no author, then use the source title.

• If there is more than one entry by the same author, then alphabetize those entries by the books’ titles.

• Instead of repeating the author’s name each time, type 3 hyphens followed by a period and then the title.

• Italicize titles of larger works (books, plays, films)

• Use quotation marks for titles of smaller works (poems, songs, etc)

• When listing the date- Day Month Year (10 April 2005)