Writing Skills

Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

8th Grade Exploration

| | |

Writing Skills

What is plagiarism?

Webster’s dictionary defines plagiarize as “to take and pass off as one’s own (the ideas, writing, etc. of another).”

In Writing with Passion: Life Stories, Multiple Genres, Tom Romano writes:

The key is to be responsible. If you quote someone or use someone else’s ideas or material in shaping your own work, acknowledge that. Give him or her credit. They deserve it, just as you deserve credit for your ideas and hard work.

Furthermore, a complete list of your sources and notes demonstrates (to some degree) the amount and quality of your work. The thing about research is to be open and candid, not secretive or sloppy.

If your documentation is irresponsible, readers might think your research is of no value. Worse, they might think you have plagiarized. That can lead to big problems: F’s for students, lawsuits for professional writers (143).

Students MUST document their sources on Source Sheets as well as attach copies of documents used for research in order to avoid plagiarism of work.

Avoiding plagiarism

There are three main ways to avoid plagiarism: quote, paraphrase, or summarize. No matter which technique one might use, the source should still be cited!

Quotes

Direct quotes give validity and reliability to an author’s ideas or statistics. They should be used as support to ideas presented in the multi-genre paper. Quotes can be powerful tools, if not overused. Quotes are used when the words of the writer are so beautiful, powerful, or important that you need to use them exactly. Otherwise, use a summary or paraphrase.

Quotation marks should be used to show the exact words of a speaker or to show what a writer has “borrowed” from another book or magazine. For more information on how to punctuate quotes, look in Writer’s Choice (Glencoe, 1996) on page 576, or in Writer’s Inc. (Write Source, 1996) on pages 625-630.

Paraphrase

A paraphrase is a rewritten version of a reading selection. It is about the same length as the original. To paraphrase, you rewrite the selection in your own words and in your own style. Writer’s Inc. (Write Source, 1996) gives specific guidelines for writing paraphrases. See pages 180 – 184 and page 498 for more information.

Summarizing

Writing the main ideas of a selection in your own words is called a summary. A summary is shorter than the original. A summary is a useful tool, especially to be sure that you understand a text. Both Writer’s Choice (Glencoe, 1996) pages 663 –664 and Writer’s Inc. (Write Source, 1996) pages 499 – 500 have specific guidelines to follow when writing a summary.

Remember, always give credit for the ideas that you take from any source. It is the first step in writing responsibly and credibly.

Endnotes Page

An endnotes page should be found as the second to last page of the multi-genre written piece (Part One of project). The purpose of the endnotes page is to let the reader know where you located certain information you’re including in your paper and how you’re using it.

Below, please find examples of an Endnotes page for papers on Scott Hamilton by Nicole Lator and Martin Luther King by Rebecca Wieferich.

Endnotes

1. Scott describes his cancer treatment in People on pages 98 – 107. I used those facts to write the newspaper article concerning his cancer.

2. Lucky to be Here portrayed Scott Hamilton’s feelings about his life pretty well. I changed a few words to make a better connection.

3. I documented many facts from Michael Steer’s Scott Hamilton. It helped me compose a birth announcement, medical record, diary entry, daily schedule, and time line.

4. Tresinowski explained Scott’s cancer and his feelings about it is People Weekly on pages 103-104. It used it to put further detail in the newspaper article and to make a creative page of quotations.

Endnotes

1. In my first piece I took the definition from page 246 of the dictionary notes in the piece.

2. The two quotes that I used in my definition piece were taken from The Words of Martin Luther King Jr. by Coretta Scott King. This first is found on page 30, and the second one is on page 43.

The dates and events found in my time line were taken from The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King, Jr. by Valerie Schloredt, and Martin Luther King by Nancy Shuker. They are found on pages 107-118, 64-67, and 108 respectively. None of the material is quoted directly.