If you want to succeed at plagiarizing, there are some basic rules you need to keep in mind:
1. If you literally copy a text from the internet, make sure all the give-away layout (such as the telltale blue keywords from Wikipedia) have been removed. Your professors are familiar with these sites, and seeing words such as "construct" or "commercial newspapers" highlighted in blue will make them sit up and pay attention. Also make sure that the font you use in the rest of your paper matches the font of the text you're taking from the internet. Although most professors are old-school, they do recognize the difference between say a Times New Roman and Verdana font
2. If you use someone else's words without giving them any credit, make sure that their writing style is at least within reaching distance of your own. Your professor will notice the difference between an introduction that talks about "this paper is gonna look at 2 different things about how the media is an influence" and a main paragraph that uses a sentence such as "therefore, the main premise that underpinned the magic bullet paradigm comes from a combination of Freudianist beliefs and social behaviorism". A sudden use of GRE-level words will also make your teacher sit up and pay attention.
3. If you are going to copy something from the internet, make sure you remove sentences and lines that may give away your endeavor. Including a line that says; "Please read the following summary and then click on the "quiz" button to take the quiz and test your understanding" in an assignment will generally make a professor realize what you have been up to.
4. Don't plagiarize on your first assignment. Not only is your professor likely to still be fresh and awake, and not yet beaten down by hundreds of assignments and papers, and thus notice your subterfuge, you will also piss them off for the rest of the semester. And next to a woman scorned, your greatest fear in life should be a mad professor.
5. If you are caught plagiarizing, don't try and make the crime seem less offensive by claiming that you actually didn't write the paper, but your roommate did. It will not help. At all.
No, I am not making this up. Any of this. We're three weeks into the semester, and except for number 5, which took place last semester, all of them have already happened. If it weren't so very sad, I would call it a miracle.
4 comments:
Echt? Niet te geloven, niet alleen het plagiaat plegen, maar het ook nog niet eens proberen te verbergen. Het wordt er hier al vanaf de middelbare school op gehamerd hoe ernstig het is.
Onze Koreaanse gastdochter had die info niet gehad op haar school, en zag er ook niks verkeerds in... andere cultuur.
Uhm, wow! Already? How sad, they should wait awhile or at least go through the section they have cut and pasted and change the wording, jeez, have a little respect!!!
That's so lame, and insulting that they think you won't notice!
Haha that would be so great and funny if it weren't so pathetically sad at the same time...
At least I always went to great lengths to hide whenever I copied something from someone... like changing the word order around.
If the text read "When A becomes B, then C becomes D at the same time", then I would make it into "C becomes D at the same time as when A becomes B"... or something along those lines.
Works/worked like a charm ;-)
But at least you had to think about it and put some effort into it...
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