"If you don't tell whose work it is, you are pretending the work is your own. This pretending is called 'plagiarism,' and it is just like cheating. It's not fair. It's not nice. It isn't OK. It's stealing."
(Simpson, 2005, p. 180)
Hey, this is not plagiarism, I put the reference! ; ) I started with this sentence 'coz I think that it clearly and briefly explains what plagiarism is. Yeah, it's stealing, that's bad. Plagiarism has to be avoided.
Plagiarism... I have to admit I didn't care too much about it in the past. I often put some sentences I found on the web or in books in my papers pretending they were mine. I thought it was pretty normal and that it was not so bad, but now I know I have to feel ashamed... as an excuse, I can say that Italian people in general don't care much about plagiarism, but I know this isn't a good reason not to respect IPR. ; ) ; ) Probably Italian people like cheating, as Sarah said. No, I don't think this is the reason, I think we're just not informed, just a bit ingenuous. ; )
However, as Sarah explained us, IPR are really important to Americans. American students committing plagiarism can be expelled from university and American workers can loose their job. This sounds incredible to me, but I have to admit that copying material that it isn't ours it's irresponsible and not respectful to the person who created it. Plagiarism is a really serious issue.
I found lots of websites of different American universities talking about plagiarism. I saved some websites in delicious, especially those that give suggestions and tips in order to avoid plagiarism, which isn't so easy as we can think, the reason being we have to pay attention to anything. Even a picture can be protected by copyright!
So, what can we, poor Italian students, do? Well, it's better to use our own material, and, if we'd like to take other people's material, we have to check if it's public domain or if there are some restrictions to use it. In every case, if we use other people's material, we have to put the reference! Pay attention guys, BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU!!!
P.S. The only thing I didn't get too much is why Italians don't care about IPR. Nobody check if the material we're using it's ours or not. Well, it's a matter of being honest or not, ok, I'm not gonna cheat any more, this is a promise! : )
Hi Vale,
RispondiEliminaI completely agree with you: Italians are not so used to considering plagiarism a serious matter. As far as I know, since we were pupils at primary school our researches and group works were completely based on other people's words, or better, on books' words! Even though sometimes teachers told not to copy, we just tried to paraphrase changing or cutting some parts of the texts; but we have never made a real effort in creating something original.
As you said, it sounds incredible that such a common behaviour can be punished so severely in other countries! Knowing this, now we should start paying a lot of attention when writing texts based on other texts.
I guess now it's time for my linguistic feedback!
First of all, you said "I have to admit", but I would have put MUST here because it's something you decide yourself, not an external imposition.
In this sentence "..in my papers pretending they were mine." I would put the comma after "papers" because you start another subordinated clause with the gerund.
"I thought it was pretty normal and that it was not so bad, but now I know I have to feel ashamed..." Here I think you could avoid the repetition of the relative and the subject after the first "and" because there are two main coordinated clauses with the same subject, thus it is not necessary to repeat it. Moreover, I would change "have to feel" with SHOULD feel.
In the following sentence you put the wrong word order: "Italian people in general don't care much about plagiarism"; it would be better to say "Generally, Italian people don't care much about plagiarism".
In the statement "Probably Italian people like cheating, as Sarah said. No, I don't think this is the reason, I think we're just not informed, just a bit ingenuous." I would change the structure a little bit, linking the two sentences together so that the speech seems more fluent: "Probably Italian people like cheating, as Sarah said, but I don't think this is the real reason; the fact is that we are just not informed enough and a bit ingenuous, too."
Then you wrote: "This sounds incredible to me, but I have to admit that copying material that it isn't ours it's irresponsible and not respectful to the person who created it." Here again you put "I have to admit", which is an expression that would go better with MUST in my opinion; other mistakes are the repetition of the subject both in the relative clause and in the main one, and the use of the possessive pronoun: the correct version would be something like ".. SUBJECT[copying material that is not our own] is a sign of irresponsibility and lack of respect to the person who created it". I dare to suggest you some possible variations in the second part of the sentence too, just because they sound me better... but I think the adjectives were grammatically correct anyway!
"I saved some websites in delicious, especially those that give suggestions and tips in order to avoid plagiarism, which isn't so easy as we can think, the reason being we have to pay attention to anything." What is wrong here is the relative clause: you probably wanted to refer to the fact of 'avoiding plagiarism' but that relative appears to refer to 'plagiarism' only. Thus, I would change the structure in this way: "...in order to avoid plagiarism. However, this is not something so easy to do because it requires a lot of attention and accuracy".
Finally, here you made a mistake with double subject again: "Nobody check if the material we're using it's ours or not." "The material we are using" is the subject of this sentence, thus it is not necessary to repeat it with the pronoun; simply put the verb "is".
Hi Sara!
RispondiEliminaThanks for all your suggestions! I made lots and lots of mistakes, dunno where my head was while I was writing this post! The incredible thing is that I reread it several times...what a shame!
The only thing I can poit out is that "must" is one of the words that Sarah eliminated, and I remember she said we have to write "I have to admit".
That's all, thanks again!
See you tomorrow : )
Yes, you're right... it's just that to my ears MUST sounds better than have to!! kisses :)
RispondiElimina