Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism

Only when you clearly understand what is plagiarism and its consequences, can you formulate strategies to avoid them. On altruistic grounds you do not want to waste others' time to read your non-contributing article and rob others of the credit they deserve. As a stick, you want to be spared the shame of being called a plagiarizer or even a suspect of plagiarism. As a writer, reputation is your life.

Plagiarism arises out of necessity. The college students are often the most frequent sinners of plagiarism. The deadline for a writing assignment is approaching and they are ill-prepared. They have wasted time that should be dedicated to the assignment; they now have a five-hour project to be done in one hour or half an hour. The same can happen with a popular science writer. The editor wants it by Friday and the author is not familiar with the topic. He requires additional five days to study the topic. All the plagiarizers take the shortcut. They simply copy and paste or translate others' work and assume authorship of it.

Pre-writing Strategies

The number one strategy to avoid plagiarism is to dedicate sufficient time to a writing project and admit that there is no shortcut in writing. Authors for popular science are all fast learners and they often write a broad spectrum of topics in many areas. But there is cost to go beyond one's trained field of study. The time cost of learning about a topic further away from one's trained field increases exponentially. Science writers should have the self-determination of bounds that balance the cost of knowledge acquisition and writing yield. Authors stepping out of their bounds often find that they have to plagiarize to be productive and commit tremendous amount of common sense errors. Regular readers should not be fooled to think that their science writers seem to have all that knowledge they penned. They simply do not. When they write, they have to consult technical books and online materials. Still, it is common to find errors in professional science writers, sometimes in their own field of training.

The second strategy is to write without copying. You are by definition a plagiarizer if you rely so heavily on one source that you copy its content and start to modify or translate. I have little doubt that this is how Dr. Fang penned most of his science articles. You should take as little notes as possible when you study for your topic. The more notes you take, the more likely you will copy your notes and develop them into an article. You could be plagiarizing without realizing it. After appropriate amount of studying, you should be able to write from memory and internalized knowledge. The Chinese legends often exaggerate of memorizing capabilities of some geniuses. The Chinese Einstein can memorize materials by reading it once, so they often claim. Such persons have never existed and anyone who makes such claims should be condemned to hell for his fraud. When you write without copying, you will automatically be able to distinguish common knowledge where citing is not necessary from special knowledge where referencing is required.

The third strategy is to develop a historical context. Many people will be confused. I only want to talk about the relationship between chicken and eggs. Now you want me to know all the history of chicken and eggs? That is exactly the idea. Knowledge accumulates with great minds. The least we can do is to pay attention to their historical contribution. Only with such attention can we grasp the finest detail of scientific knowledge. Only with such knowledge can we write a good science article that is accurate and free of plagiarism. If you do not believe in the merit of science, then here's the stick. Only when you know who have created the knowledge you accumulated, can you identify the appropriate sources to give credit to. Without a historical context, you may be able to write without plagiarism, but you may break other rules of ethical writing that includes misquote and lack of appropriate credit to ownerships.

Strategies during Writing

The fourth strategy is to give credit when in doubt. With the historical knowledge you gained about your science knowledge, you will naturally develop a sense of appreciation of what the pioneers had done in the past. You naturally want to praise or at least mention them for their endeavors. You will have almost no trouble to credit others. In the remaining few circumstances, you should give credit to people when in doubt. As a general rule, if a piece of knowledge comes to you only in one source, direct or indirect, you should always cite.

The fifth strategy is to write with critics and students in mind. If you write articles that you do not want to read yourself, then writing is not an appropriate career for you. When you write, you should be emotionally prepared to write, more accurately, to share this incredible insight in knowledge you just gained. You should imagine a critic who wants to challenge your miraculous claims in the article or a student who wants to know all that you know about this topic but could not share because of word limit. Your credits to others will serve a double purpose of appreciation of pioneers for their wonderful work and guidance to additional reading in the field. This strategy improves your writing as well as protects you from ethical concerns beyond plagiarism.

The sixth strategy is to write with a humble heart. There are many philosophical arguments for humility and it is a core value in Christianity. How does humility helps with writing? It serves two purposes. It prevents you from making claims that you later regret. A proud heart often causes us to step over bounds and make hard-to-justify claims. Many people are embarrassed to find them challenged in their own courtyard when they display a proud and vaunted attitude in their writing. What goes up must come down. The physical law applies to the emotional world as well. The readers have a tendency to identify with their authors. If you are high, they want to pull you down to prove themselves. On the other hand, if you are low, they want to promote you so that they are equally of value. With a humble heart, you tend to deflect away credit even if you deserve. Don't worry. The readers are ultimately fair and they never rob you of what you deserve. For example, if you write about a new idea of which you do not know whether someone had the same idea before, a humble person wants to give credit to someone else even if someone does not exist to his knowledge whereas a proud person will quickly write “I have this beautiful idea……” Imagine the embarrassment if the idea turns out to be a bad one. A proud you have certainly committed plagiarism if it turns out indeed someone had proposed the idea before.

Technical Advice

1. Scope of Referencing

Material	Referencing	Permission
Direct copying	Always Quotation marks or scheme clearly indicate start and end	10% or less=No >10%=Yes
Text paraphrasing	Always Has to be materially different	No Cannot be extensive = <30% own content
Translation (single source)	Always with original authors Copying/paraphrasing rule apply	Seek permission when possible Yes if translate whole article No for public materials
Translation (multiple sources)	Always Designate article type as “translated/compiled”	If a single source constitute >50% of own content, see above
Tables, figures, illustrations, unmodified	Always	Seek permission when possible Always Yes for copyrighted material/commercial use
Tables, figures, illustrations, modified	Always Note as not copy of original	Depends on scope of modification Minor modification see above
Ideas from mail, email, or any other personal communication	Always	Protection of privacy rules apply
General facts and knowledge	No. For emphasis, direct quote from authoritative source	No

 

2. Paraphrasing Acceptability Examples

Acceptability	Expression
Original	Few laboratory creatures have had such a spectacularly successful and productive history as Drosophila. It first entered laboratories about 1900, revealed its talent for experimental genetics to Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students at Columbia University in the early 1910s, and after some ups and downs in status is still going strong almost a century later. (from Kohler, R.E. 1994. The Lords of the Fly. The University of Chicago Press, 321 pages.)
Unacceptable: copying phrases without using quotation marks	Despite some ups and downs in status, nearly a century after the fly revealed its talent to Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students, Drosophila genetics research continues its spectacularly successful history (Kohler, 1994).
Unacceptable: emulating sentence structure	No model organism has been so amazingly useful and effective as the fruit fly. The fly came on the scene as an experimental tool at the beginning of the 20th century, was adopted by Thomas Hunt Morgan and his Columbia pupils at Columbia University around 1910, and (despite some fluctuations in attention paid to it) is still a widely used experimental system (Kohler 1994).
Unacceptable: emulating paragraph structure	Drosophila is model organism with a rich and useful legacy. Upon arriving on the scene at the turn of the century, the fruit fly soon became the organism of choice for Thomas Hunt Morgan and his Columbia University pupils. Despite fluctuations in status, fly research is still central to the progress of genetics (Kohler, 1994).
Acceptable: But bad practice – equivalent to original expression, should quote directly.	Thomas Hunt Morgan and colleagues at Columbia University were among the first to use the fruit fly Drosophila as a model organism, adopting it as an experimental system around 1910. Since then, the popularity of the fly has waxed and waned somewhat, but the breadth and depth of current research indicates that Drosophilacontinues its legacy as an incredibly important research tool (Kohler, 1994).
Acceptable: good practice – simplification	Starting with Thomas Hunt Morgan and colleagues at Columbia University around 1910, the fruit fly Drosophila as a model organism has been adopted as an experimental system for nearly a century (Kohler, 1994).
Acceptable: good practice – expanding for added information [Expanded information is for demonstration only; there is no factual and scientific basis.]	Thomas Hunt Morgan and colleagues at Columbia University were among the first to use the fruit fly Drosophila as a model organism, adopting it as an experimental system around 1910. The popularity of the fly had increased during 1940s. The interest of researchers waned significantly for the next two decades, but rebounded quickly in 1980s because of its potential for studying genetics. The breadth and depth of current research indicates that Drosophila is still an incredibly important research tool (Kohler, 1994).

This table is adapted from The Biology Department @ Davidson Statement on Plagiarism (http://www.bio.davidson.edu/dept/plagiarism.html)

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