Discussion Posts Week 3 PDF

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Discussion Posts Week 3...

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Define plagiarism in your own words. Why do you think students plagiarize? Describe how students can avoid academic dishonesty, in group work or as an individual? How does academic dishonesty undermine the purpose of obtaining an education?

Plagiarism is “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.” I believe plagiarism is stealing someone’s work, taking credit for it, and not learning the material itself. Students should avoid plagiarism by reading and summarizing any article, journal, or paper. They can also directly quote if they cite their sources in APA format. Academic dishonesty undermines the purpose of obtaining an education by cheating, falsifying, or simply not doing the work yourself. I believe that you learn better when you do the work.

Plagiarism is something that should not be taken lightly. If you are not familiar with what plagiarism is, let me give it to you simple and plain. Copy and Paste, which means you, took something that came from someone else and used it for your own without giving credit. Plagiarism happens knowingly or unknowingly. Students will copy and paste something just because of how good it sounds or because they will not take the time to do it themselves. I am not saying that it is done intentionally all the time; however, there are steps one must take to avoid it. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to give credit to whomever originated the idea. We call that “Citation”, making sure you document where you found it and who said it.

Academic dishonesty undermines the purpose of obtaining education because how do you expect to gain education cheating your way through the process. Education is designed for a student to go through certain things to gain education from it, similar to experience. If you are dishonest about it, then you doing a disservice to yourself. Some examples of academic dishonesty could be getting answers from another student, or pulling things from the internet and using them as your own. These are just a few examples, and both will keep you from truly gaining the knowledge you are paying for.

I agree with you in your description of both plagiarism and academic dishonesty. Honestly, I don’t see the point in paying thousands of dollars for an education if you’re just going to cheat your way through it. Part of that feeling of accomplishment comes from researching, doing the work yourself and giving credit to your sources. Unfortunately, in this day and age, we have everything at our fingertips which makes it that much easier to plagiarize. I just hope folks will take the high road and refrain from cheating or plagiarizing.

Plagiarism is when you use someone else’s work and try to pass it off as your own without giving them proper credit. This can happen in many ways. It doesn’t have to be copying something word for word. It can also consist of paraphrasing their work or even using a picture or image without their consent. The best way to avoid academic dishonesty in group work or on an individual assignment is by using your own words and thoughts on a subject or by being sure to cite your resources. If you try to take credit for someone else’s work, are you really learning anything? This academic dishonesty will not reward you with the education that you strive for.

Great point! I did not think of paraphrasing as plagiarism, but I do see how you are viewing that. Consent is especially important in not stealing someone’s work. Citing sources, while it can be difficult, is absolutely the best way to make sure credit is given properly. Academic dishonesty can be tricky but making sure to put things in your own words and citing sources proves that you actually did the work you put into said paper.

The GCU Library will be an important resource throughout your program of study. After you view the library tutorials or attend a library webinar, identify 2-3 of the features that will be particularly useful to you as a student at GCU.

Having an online library at GCU will be greatly beneficial to me. I am excited that this is an option. I know I will be using Find Books & More to reach the thousands of books GCU library provides. With my degree, I foresee using many journal articles and studies, therefore Find Journal articles will be another valuable resource. I look forward to using Citation Guidelines as I am not as knowledgeable on citing in my papers. I am ready to get started on the good stuff, using the GCU library to its full advantage.

While a student at GCU I believe the library is one of the most important resources that I will need to learn how to navigate and use. The first thing you can use the library for is finding journal articles. The next thing that the library can be used for is accessing books and webinars. Thirdly and what I think is the most amazing is the “Ask a Librarian” feature with this you can ask for help with research or even help finding an online resource.

Reply I agree that the library is one of the most important resources. Having the online library is an especially important and beneficial thing when choosing to do online schooling. I like the ask the librarian feature, as it will make it easier to find things or if I’m having trouble, knowing someone live can answer my questions sets my mind at ease. This will make researching and writing papers a bit simpler. Lots of luck in your college career.

I believe I will use the Find Journal Articles, Research Guides, and the Find Book and More tabs the most. Find Journal Articles seems to be the home of any and every article I should ever need for my research. I believe Ref Works and Endnote will also play a huge part in research. I can find eBooks as well on the Find books and More tab. Electronic textbooks and books for research I think work best with my schedule. So, it is nice having those options for my college journey. Lastly, Research Guides. I need all the help I can get with proper citing in my papers. As I was browsing, I saw several resources and tutorials to aid me with citations. I am sure I will be referring to these quite often throughout my time here at GCU. Reply Having electronic textbooks and research books is going to be especially valuable in this day and age. It makes it easier to get ahold of, read and find specific parts of the books. I am glad we have that option as well. I believe having the citation tools will further my knowledge in getting citations correct. Research guides looked very promising in finding the exact study materials and explanation needed in order to produce quality work.

This week’s discussion question 1 is on the code of conduct, dishonesty, and plagiarism. Plagiarism is taking credit for someone else’s work or words. I think students plagiarize: to get accepted into college, to get ahead, to impress family or friends, and because they do not like to fail. Students can avoid dishonesty by giving their resource credit for his/her work or words, giving themselves enough time to complete writing assignments, and avoid students who like to hustle money on the side by doing someone else’s assignments. Academic dishonestly takes away a student’s passion and desires in achieving the best in his/her education. Without any passion and desires, a dishonest student would be like a crackhead, always looking for the next quick-fix or help me moment: continuing to use someone else’s work, words, credit, and time throughout college.

I agree one hundred percent that students plagiarize to get ahead or for fear of failure. Unfortunately, plagiarizing has much worse consequences than a failing grade. You can get kicked completely out of school for plagiarizing, whereas with a failing grade, you can always drop and repeat the course. Great point on academic dishonesty. Without the passion and hard work that goes into an assignment, there is simply a grade, not the feeling of accomplishment or success.

Plagiarism is when someone takes someone else's work and try to make it their own. I believe students plagiarize because they do not have confidence in themselves or they do not want to take the time to do it themselves. Students can avoid academic dishonesty in group work by talking about what everyone in the group is going to write about so no one else in the group writes about the others ideas. Academic dishonesty undermine the purpose of obtaining an education because you are not doing it yourself you are taking someone else's work and saying it is yours when it is not yours.

I agree with your statement “they do not have confidence in themselves or they do not want to take the time to do it themselves.” A lot of people struggle when writing papers, and therefore plagiarize just to have it done and out of the way. Unfortunately, they end up having to redo it when they could have done the work themselves in the first place. Academic dishonesty and plagiarism go hand in hand in a student’s success. If you simply do the work yourself, you have a much better chance of passing and being done with said assignment.

After viewing the library tutorials, I think I will use a variety of library features during different times in my education. For example, I know that while I am still getting started, the library webinars and “Ask A Librarian” will be extremely helpful. I know that throughout my entire time at GCU, I plan to make full use of RefWorks and EndNote. Citation is something that scares me, especially after this week’s discussion on plagiarism. I also noted that even as online students, we can still have real paper books mailed to us at no cost to us. Finally, I just wanted to say that I found the video on Boolean Operators to be helpful. I found the instructions on how to broaden or narrow a search by choosing different words interesting.

Reply Great note there about being able to have paperback books mailed to us at no cost. I was unaware of that, thank you. Having the online library is one of my favorite features that GCU offers. I am excited to start attending some of the webinars myself. I feel they will be greatly beneficial for my learning and career ahead. Being a visual learner, I feel this will be my best bet at producing good work.

Plagiarism in my own words is when you take someone else's work and try to use it as your own. Some students plagiarize as a quick shortcut to completing their work, while others plagiarize unknowingly because they do not know how to cite correctly. One of the ways to prevent plagiarism is to take the time to educate ourselves as well as others about academic dishonesty, and the reasons why it will not help us in the long run. For a person to reach their educational goals they will need to be challenged and assessed but academic dishonesty prevents us from that.

Reply

I agree that with your statement that some students plagiarize as a shortcut. I think they do it just to have the job complete. Sadly, they do not consider that they will likely have to redo the assignment, if they are lucky. I find it much easier and better for me to do the hard work in the beginning and if I do a bad job then it’s on me and my brain, not the plagiarizing.

After reviewing the library tutorials as well as searching around the website I found many useful tools that I can use while at GCU. When searching for a scholarly source you can choose exactly which data base you want to use. You can get one on one help from librarians. You can call or email them to ask for help. And lastly the tools RefWorks and endnotes are available to students. I see myself using those two the most. Being able to manage citations in one place is extremely convenient. Reply

I like that the scholarly source gives you the option to choose which database you want to use. That will be immensely helpful in comparing and contrasting papers. Librarians being available is a great resource

as well. I know I have trouble sometimes finding exactly what I need. This is where a librarian will be my greatest resource. I am new to the Endnotes thing myself. I hope to learn more about it and how to utilize it throughout my college career.

I know the assignment was to put the definition of plagiarism into my own words, however I cannot do that without first giving the defined definition of it. Dictionary.com defines plagiarism as: “the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.” This is exactly how I would address and define plagiarism, the act or action of taking what someone else has accomplished and calling it your own. There are probably many reasons a student will tell you why they plagiarized someone else’s work, but it all boils down to laziness or lack of preparation. Laziness in the fact that they did not want to do the assignment or waited until it was too late to start it. Lack of preparation in either forgetting about the assignment or not realizing how much time it was going to take to accomplish the assignment. To avoid plagiarism in group or individual work, use a plagiarism checker. Many universities offer their own type and there are many free versions available on the internet. It takes little energy to ensure that you do not plagiarize a paper, all you must use is a little common sense. If you decide to become academically dishonest and cheat your way through an education, it does you no good because you have learned nothing about the education you have received. When you go to put your degree to use, you will not be able to because you have not learned any of the basic skills offered due to your dishonesty. Reply I agree that lack of preparation is probably one of the main factors in a student plagiarizing. In reality, if a student has a legit excuse, most professors will be lenient and give them extra time, but students tend to not want to do that. Plagiarism checkers are new to me, as we did not have them in my first two years of college. I am interested to start trying these out. I do not want to accidently take someone else’s work. Great point about not learning anything if you cheat your way through. I think you respect yourself more, as well become more respected if you work hard and not cheat....