ATAR Notes: Forum

Uni Stuff => General University Discussion and Queries => Topic started by: MuggedByReality on December 01, 2010, 01:48:15 am

Title: Plagiarism
Post by: MuggedByReality on December 01, 2010, 01:48:15 am

    What exactly constitutes plagiarism? How rare does the group of words one uses have to be, for one to be guilty?
     And are the rules the same for academic discourse, literature and print journalism?
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: Russ on December 01, 2010, 08:30:56 am
Unauthorised and unacknowledged use of somebody else's work (but seriously, if you have to ask then you're probably guilty)

I don't think the rarity of the words matters, just the overall percentage similarity
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: mikee65 on December 04, 2010, 08:55:43 pm
Unauthorised and unacknowledged use of somebody else's work (but seriously, if you have to ask then you're probably guilty)

I don't think the rarity of the words matters, just the overall percentage similarity
Mmm has there ever been a coincidence? whats the % threshold?
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: Chavi on December 04, 2010, 09:43:03 pm
Unauthorised and unacknowledged use of somebody else's work (but seriously, if you have to ask then you're probably guilty)

I don't think the rarity of the words matters, just the overall percentage similarity
Mmm has there ever been a coincidence? whats the % threshold?
51%

This is what your teachers use:
http://www.articlechecker.com/
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: Russ on December 05, 2010, 08:30:44 am
haha 51% is way too high. It varies from department to department but dad says that he stipulates 20%

and this is what will be used:
http://turnitin.com
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: Eriny on December 05, 2010, 12:45:12 pm
It's possible to plagiarise accidentally by using someone else's idea without realising that it was from them, it happens all the time in music for instance. I would draw an important distinction between knowing you've stolen somebody's work, which you really need to credit somewhere and not knowing which is perfectly understandable. That's the same both for academic work and journalism, the difference between them is the way you'd reference where your thoughts/ideas/quotations are from.
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: ninwa on December 05, 2010, 01:01:38 pm
@Russ, how much does your dad rely on Turnitin? It can be really annoying and pick up common phrases like "reasonable foreseeability", and on the other hand does not check whether *ideas* have been copieš. And 20% wow that's high, for a law assignment the threshold was I think 10%? And for a French one someone got failed for one phrase being a direct copy off the internet (lol)
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: Russ on December 05, 2010, 01:05:55 pm
Apparently he's got it set to show the percentage to the students when they submit it and they know that they're not allowed to submit anything over the cutoff (which varies). After that if it seems to still be copied he'll check it out further himself I guess. So he uses it as a filter mostly.
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: MuggedByReality on December 05, 2010, 01:18:47 pm
Apparently he's got it set to show the percentage to the students when they submit it and they know that they're not allowed to submit anything over the cutoff (which varies). After that if it seems to still be copied he'll check it out further himself I guess. So he uses it as a filter mostly.
What/Where does he teach?
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: stonecold on December 05, 2010, 01:27:18 pm
What if you do your assignments by hand?
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: Chavi on December 05, 2010, 01:39:19 pm
What if you do your assignments by hand?
scan with word convert
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: stonecold on December 05, 2010, 01:42:30 pm
What if you do your assignments by hand?
scan with word convert

May just have to start using cursive then.  :P

Nah, plagiarism is lame.  I hate it when people copy the work of others.
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: TrueLight on December 05, 2010, 04:33:26 pm
^ oh dont worry you wouldn't want to at uni
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: Glockmeister on December 05, 2010, 07:14:54 pm
^ oh dont worry you wouldn't want to at uni

If you do it, it might be something you'll regret later down the track, to the point that it might be a career-limiting move.

Just ask a previous Monash University Vice-Chancellor.
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: stonecold on December 05, 2010, 09:45:42 pm
^ oh dont worry you wouldn't want to at uni

If you do it, it might be something you'll regret later down the track, to the point that it might be a career-limiting move.

Just ask a previous Monash University Vice-Chancellor.

I think our coordinator told us about this last year.

He copied like only a bit and didn't reference it in a speech or something?

Then he got found out and hasn't had a decent job since.  Big fall from grace?
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: bomb on December 10, 2010, 05:32:06 pm
What if you do your assignments by hand?
scan with word convert

I assure you that does not work. No matter how neat your handwriting is, OCR can't pick it up.
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: stonecold on December 10, 2010, 10:32:24 pm
What if you do your assignments by hand?
scan with word convert

I assure you that does not work. No matter how neat your handwriting is, OCR can't pick it up.

This was what I thought haha...
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: TrueLight on December 10, 2010, 10:36:23 pm
its not like anyone writes a 2000 word assignment by hand  :P
Title: Re: Plagiarism
Post by: Glockmeister on December 11, 2010, 04:44:21 pm
^ oh dont worry you wouldn't want to at uni

If you do it, it might be something you'll regret later down the track, to the point that it might be a career-limiting move.

Just ask a previous Monash University Vice-Chancellor.

I think our coordinator told us about this last year.

He copied like only a bit and didn't reference it in a speech or something?

Then he got found out and hasn't had a decent job since.  Big fall from grace?

IRRC, it was some academic book or something he was doing that people were suspecting that he plagiarised. He resigned to avoid an investigation into it.