Establishing Authorship
Paul C. Smith
"Throughout their studies at Alverno College, students are exposed to a variety of learning styles. In some classes faculty require students to complete assignments in small group work sessions, while others may require students to complete work on an independent basis. Both experiences can be stimulating and rewarding. However, when submitting work for courses, students need to remember that they have a personal responsibility to complete work in accordance with the instructions of their teacher and sound academic principles. This means standing behind one's work as a contributing member of a team when collaborative work is required. It also means standing behind one's work as the individual who thought it through and carried it out when independent work is required.
When students are required to consult with professionals outside the College or undertake research in the library in order to gather information necessary for the completion of an assignment, they need to make reference to the resources used. Whenever students refer to secondary sources, whether for direct quotation or paraphrasing, they must supply clear documentation with generally accepted academic standards."
- Alverno College Student Handbook (1994-1995), page 45.
Expected Outcomes
The purpose of this assignment is for you to demonstrate your understanding of the standards for establishing authorship of written works. In particular, you will show:
Plagiarism: Definition and Penalties
It is probably safe to assume that you already know that it's unethical for you to pay another student to write a paper that you then claim as your own work and turn in for a course project. Any time a student represents work done by someone else as her own, that student has committed an act of plagiarism. When an instructor discovers that a student has done so, that instructor can no longer assume that any of the work the student has turned in is her own. A minimum penalty would be to fail the student, with the more severe penalty of dismissal from the college a strong possibility. In an ability-based curriculum such as Alverno's, severe penalties are particularly appropriate, as course credit at Alverno constitutes recognition that the student has demonstrated the ability outcomes of the course.
You need to know that this intentional form of claiming another's work as one's own is only one end of a spectrum of offenses, and that milder forms of plagiarism carry severe penalties as well. For example, if you write a paper using your own words throughout except for a single paragraph you took from your textbook, you must put that paragraph in quotation marks and provide a citation for the book as well as the page number from which you took the quote. Failure to do so is plagiarism. When an instructor discovers this form of plagiarism, that instructor can no longer assume that the rest of that student's work is her own. A minimum penalty of course failure is again called for - even if the instructor believes that the student did not intentionally misrepresent the source of the work. The issue is not intention, but whether or not the course instructor can in good conscience certify that the student has demonstrated the course outcomes herself. Hence it is vital that the instructor know that the student knows how to correctly indicate which ideas and words are her own, and which she has taken from some other source. Ignorance of the rules of citation and of quoting does not make plagiarism 'ok'.
Citations
When you read textbooks, academic books, and academic journal articles, you often see something like this:
The literature on the calming effects of caring for plants on the elderly is full of contradictory findings. Potter (1975) found that a group of elderly nursing home patients caring for plants showed significantly reduced blood pressure when compared with a matched control group. On the other hand, Tillman (1983) found that the demands of caring for plants seemed to act as any other psychosocial stressor would.
This excerpt contains two citations, one to Potter (1975) and another to Tillman (1983). A paper containing this excerpt would need to provide the complete citation on a page at the end marked "References". For example,
References
Potter, I. (1975). Aging and photosynthesis. Journal of therapeutic botany, 24, 34-56.
Tillman, M. (1983). Stress, soil, and seeds: The effects of gardening on physiological stress. Psychophysiobotany, 20, 455-466.
You've seen this citation practice many times, and maybe you've even used it in your own papers. It is important that you understand exactly what citations like these tell the reader. The citation "Potter (1975)" in this example simply tells the reader who did the study described. In other cases, the citation may tell the reader whose ideas are being described. For example,
The content of a propositional attitude is determined by the causal relation between events in the world and states of the entity that holds the propositional attitude, and this causal relation is mediated through information (Dretske, 1983).
This excerpt contains a citation which in this case tell the reader whose ideas are being expressed. Despite the fact that the words are mine, they are using the ideas of Fred Dretske (which can be found in their original words in the source cited).
It is essential that you recognize that you need to give such citations when you discuss ideas you found in others' work. The citation says to the reader "these are not my ideas. I found them in work done by others, and am simply using them in my work". It is equally essential that you recognize that these citations are not exact quotes from the original work. Despite the fact that I directed the reader to Dretske's work, if these were Dretske's own words, this sentence would constitute a piece of plagiarism. The citation says to the reader "these are not my ideas", but it does not say "these are also not my words". If these were Dretske's original words, the sentence would have to look like this:
"The content of a propositional attitude is determined by the causal relation between events in the world and states of the entity that holds the propositional attitude, and this causal relation is mediated through information" (Dretske, 1983, p.34).
In this case, the quotation marks say to the reader "These ideas are Dretske's, and so are the words used to express them". The author is not claiming either ideas or words as his or her own.
I cannot overstate the importance of understanding this distinction. Failure to put quotation marks around exact quotes constitutes plagiarism - you are claiming to have written something that you did not write. Even if you never intended to make such a claim, you have committed an act of misrepresentation that calls into question all of your work.
Quotations
When you use someone else's exact words, you must take appropriate steps to inform the reader that you are doing so. In general, this means that you must enclose the quotation in quotation marks, and provide a reference that includes the page number. The exact rules are as follows:
Material directly quoted from another author's work or from one's own previously published work, material duplicated from a test item, and verbatim instructions to participants should be reproduced word for word. Incorporate a short quotation (fewer than 40 words) in text, and enclose the quotation with double quotation marks.
Display a quotation of 40 or more words in a free-standing block of typewritten lines, and omit the quotation marks. Start such a block quotation on a new line, and indent it five spaces from the left margin (in the same position as a new paragraph). Type subsequent lines flush with the indent. If there are additional paragraphs within the quotation, indent the first line of each five spaces from the margin of the quotation.
(APA, 1994, p.95)
As you can see, there are exceptions to the rule that quotations must be in quotation marks - but in those instances, there are other clear indicators to the reader that the words are not the author's own. It should be apparent that the previous two paragraphs are the words of the APA (from the Publication Manual, 4th ed.), and not my own. What tells the reader that is the indent, and the reference including page number. Had I omitted either of these elements, I would have committed an act of plagiarism, as it would not be clear to the reader that these words are not my own.
The quote from the Publication Manual is an example of a long quotation. As it points out, the rules for a short quotation (fewer than 40 words) are slightly different. For such a quotation, you must use quotation marks, and put the quote into your own text (rather than setting it off with blank lines and indents). For example,
It will do no good to postpone accommodation of these robustness examples. As Fodor points out, "Presumably, perception and thought are intentional in the same sense, so it's likely that a semantics that works only for the former works for the wrong reason" (Fodor, 1990, p.82).
This example shows the format for short quotes (fewer than 40 words - 27 in this instance). The quotation marks and the page number in the reference indicate to the reader that the ideas and the words are Fodor's, and not mine.
In summary, there are simple specific rules for indicating that you (the paper's author) are using another's words as well as ideas. You will be expected to follow these rules faithfully when you use another's words.
Quoting and Paraphrasing
Having learned how to correctly quote sources, you may find yourself tempted to write papers consisting mostly or even entirely of quotes. If you turn in such a paper, you'll probably find that your instructor returns it without reading it. While it does take some understanding to identify relevant quotes, and to put them into a meaningful order, your instructors generally expect much more from you. We expect the depth of understanding that can only be demonstrated by expressing ideas in your own words. Hence you will be expected to paraphrase (put into your own words) the important points you gather from your resources.
Before we look at the particulars of paraphrasing, we need to answer a question: How do you know whether to quote or to paraphrase? The general rule is to use a quote only when the exact wording of the original source is important. For example,
'Although some psychoanalysts believed that girls experience a parallel Electra complex, Freud (1931, p.229) said no: "It is only in the male child that we find the fateful combination of love for the one parent and simultaneous hatred for the other as a rival"' (Myers, 1993, p.348).
versus
"Their Eysenck Personality Questionnaire has been given to people in 35 countries around the world, from China to Uganda to Russia. When people's answers are analyzed, the extraversion and emotionality factors inevitably emerge as basic personality dimensions (Eysenck, 1990)" (Myers, 1993, p.357).
Notice that Myers used Freud's exact words in the first example, but paraphrased Eysenck's words in the second example. Myers' paraphrase gets the idea across clearly in the second example. In the first example, because he is discussing a disputed theoretical issue, and trying to express Freud's own views on the issue, Myers chose to give Freud's exact words. Evaluating theoretical disputes often requires quotations, in the interest of avoiding the problem of misreading a theorist's views.
In general, you should find yourself using relatively few exact quotes. It would be perfectly reasonable in most cases to hand in a major research project with no quotes whatsoever. In fact, in the personality chapter in his best-selling textbook Exploring Psychology, David Myers (1993) only quotes Freud three times in the nine pages discussing Freud's ideas. Lesser-known theorists will be quoted even less frequently. A good rule of thumb for your papers should be "when in doubt, paraphrase".
Paraphrasing
If correct citation and quotation practices are sciences, paraphrasing is a bit of an art. There are no hard-and-fast rules for paraphrasing. You must instead develop a 'feel' for it. I'll try to provide some examples of what constitutes an adequate paraphrase and what constitutes an inadequate paraphrase. Here is a paragraph to be paraphrased:
"Long-term memory, that immensely complex storehouse, has also been most extensively studied with the use of verbal materials, usually presented in the form of long lists. As we shall see, this approach has resulted in some extremely important findings, but it has also been a bit misleading. After all, remembering lists of words is somewhat different from remembering a conversation, a recipe, or the plot of a movie" (Klatsky, 1975, p.17).
Here is an inadequate paraphrase:
Long term memory is a complex storehouse that has been studied extensively using verbal materials presented in the form of long lists. While this approach has resulted in some important findings, it has been misleading. Remembering a list is not like remembering a discussion or a movie (Klatsky, 1975).
Here is an adequate paraphrase:
We usually study long term memory by having subjects attempt to recall aloud items from long lists. Because such a task is different in important ways from the kinds of tasks long term memory is usually called upon to perform, our findings are somewhat questionable (Klatsky, 1975).
You should first notice that in both cases the reference was provided (Klatsky, 1975). This work is still the source of the ideas, even if not directly quoted. The inadequate paraphrase is not really the student's own words, but rather just Klatsky's words rearranged a bit (with a few words omitted). If you were to turn in a paper containing this paragraph you would have committed an act of plagiarism. It should be apparent that a person could write such a paragraph without really understanding the original paragraph at all. The author of the adequate paraphrase, on the other hand, must have understood Klatsky's original paragraph. The meaning of that paragraph is captured in the paraphrase, but the words used to express that meaning are the author's own. An adequate paraphrase indicates to the reader that the author understood the original material. Authors should not include material that they do not understand. Rosnow and Rosnow refer to the inclusion of material the author does not understand as "lazy writing" (1992, p.49).
In summary:
Stylebooks Besides APA
The American Psychological Association Publication Manual is not the only stylebook used in academic writing. In particular, students may be required to write papers following the style recommended by the Modern Language Association of America, described in the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers (Modern Language Association of America, 1988). The rules are very similar to those of the APA: cite the source, and put quotation marks around exact quotations. In general, it is the student's responsibility to follow the rules set forth by the stylebook used by the discipline.
Co-authored Projects
In some of your classes, you may be asked to co-author a paper with one or more classmates. For example, you may work on a research project with a partner, and be required to work together on a paper reporting your results. For such a project, some of the words in the paper will be your own, and others will be your partner's. Does this mean that you should put quotation marks around all the paragraphs your partner writes, and cite her in the reference section? Obviously not, but why not?
The answer can be found on the title page of the paper. When you write a paper with one or more co-authors you need to list all the co-authors on the title page. This establishes that the (unquoted) words in the paper are those of one or more of the authors. Nothing more need be done.
Other Uses of Quotation Marks
You may at times find yourself confused by authors who put quotation marks around single words or short passages, but do not indicate whose words are being quoted. Quotation marks are occasionally used for purposes other than those indicated above. For example, the APA Publication Manual requires authors to put quotation marks around the exact words used in instructions to subjects in research projects ("Now push the blue button to indicate that you see the signal light..."). Quotation marks are also used to indicate that a word does not have its normal meaning. For example, 'In the early part of the War, no one ever came away from smelling the apparent "lovely carnation" in Lee's lapel without getting a generous eyeful of Swanee River water' (Allen, 1991, p.278). The quotation marks around "lovely carnation" (known as "scare quotes") indicate that the carnation is not really a "lovely carnation".
References
Allen, W. (1991). The complete prose of Woody Allen. New York: Wings.
American Psychological Association (1994). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington DC: Author.
Dretske, F. (1983). Precis of "Knowledge and the flow of information." The behavioral and brain sciences, 6, 55-63.
Fodor, J. A. (1990). A theory of content and other essays. Cambridge: MIT press.
Klatsky, R. (1975). Human memory: Structures and processes. San Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Company.
Modern Language Association of America, (1988). MLA handbook for writers ofresearch papers. New York: Author.
Myers, D. G. (1993). Exploring psychology. New York: Worth.
Nye, R. D. (1992). Three psychologies: Perspectives from Freud, Skinner, and Rogers. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Rosnow, R. L, & Rosnow, M. (1992). Writing papers in psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Smith, P. C. (1984). Logo programming and planning skills. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Wisconsin at Madison, Madison WI.
Smith, P. C. (1994). Fodor's theory of meaning: Accounting for misrepresentation and robustness of meaning. Unpublished master's thesis, University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, Milwaukee WI.
Plagiarism Assignment
1. Read the attached paper carefully. You will be expected to know this material throughout your coursework. You will not pass this course without demonstrating your understanding of this material.
2. Read the following excerpt from the literature review of my Educational Psychology thesis (Smith, 1984):
Theories of Planning
Cohen and Feigenbaum (1982) define problem solving as the process of developing a sequence of actions to achieve a goal. Planning, then, is the process of deciding on a course of action before actually acting. Anderson (1983) wrote "If it can be shown that a system reorders a preferred sequence of actions in anticipation of goal conflict, then that system is engaging in planning" (p.107). The plan which results has a hierarchical structure leading from decreasingly abstract representations of the plan to an ordering of the primitive operations which when executed will lead to solution.
In attempting to model human planning, artificial intelligence researchers have created planning systems which operate based on several different sets of assumptions. As explained by McCutchen (1984), "these planners differ according to the number of levels of abstraction permitted in the problem representation. That is, how much of the problem solving is done in the abstract, before local details are specified?" (p.227).
Cohen and Feigenbaum (1982) describe four types of planning:
(1) Nonhierarchical.
Nonhierarchical plans have a hierarchy of goals, but no hierarchy of representations. Problem reduction and means-ends analysis are two examples of non-hierarchical planning strategies. For instance, in the case of problem reduction, the Tower of Hanoi problem is typically solved recursively by the realization that the N disk Tower of Hanoi has as a subgoal the solution to an N-1 disk tower.
(2) Hierarchical.
Hierarchical plans have a hierarchy of goals and of representations. The highest representation is an abstraction of the plan and the lowest is a detailed plan. This is similar to a successive refinement strategy. For example, the problem of buying a piano could be refined into "locate piano, get money, buy piano." "Locate piano" could be further refined into "find names of musical instrument dealers, go to dealers, check prices and quality of pianos, choose a piano." Each level is a short-hand representation of the level below.
(3) Scriptbased.
Scriptbased planning systems contain plan outlines, one of which is chosen for a problem. Once an outline is chosen, variables in the outline are bound to values specific to that problem. This can also be thought of as the retrieval of known solutions to the problem. For instance, the plan to go to lunch may be best implemented through retrieval of an already learned lunch script.
(4) Opportunistic.
The opportunistic planning system uses the blackboard model, in which low-level outcomes drive decisions providing both topdown and bottomup processing.
a) In the first paragraph, problem solving is defined.
Whose words are used in the definition?
Whose ideas are used?
b) Later in that paragraph the words "If it can be shown that a system reorders a preferred sequence of actions in anticipation of goal conflict, then that system is engaging in planning" appear.
Whose words are these?
Whose idea is it?
c) The second half of the excerpt consists of descriptions of four types of planning.
Who developed the idea to categorize planning this way?
Whose words are used to describe the four categories?
3) Read the following excerpt from Robert Nye's Three Psychologies: Perspectives from Freud, Skinner, and Rogers.
Freud was a strict determinist who believed strongly that all behavior is caused; actions, as well as thoughts and feelings, do not occur accidentally or by chance. Making slips of the tongue, dreaming, hallucinating, forgetting, choosing, wishing, striving for success, repeating certain behaviors again and again, refusing to admit mistakes, being hostile towards others, writing novels, painting pictures, and on and on - all these behaviors and all other behaviors were assumed to be capable of explanation (Nye, 1992, p.10).
a) Whose words are these?
b) Provide a paraphrase of this excerpt. You need to capture the idea expressed, but do not repeat every item on the list! Be sure to cite your source, though.
4) Read the following excerpt from Barbara Ehrenreich's Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class.
Historians differ on when the consumer culture came to dominate American culture. Some say it was in the twenties, when advertising became a major industry and the middle class bought radios to hear the ads and cars to get to the stores. Some say it was in the late nineteenth century, when the first department stores appeared in American cities and a class of wealthy, idle women arose to shop in them. But there is no question that the consumer culture had begun to crowd out all other cultural possibilities by the years following World War II (Ehrenreich, 1989, p.35).
a) Provide a paraphrase of this excerpt.
5) Read the following excerpt from Robert Bolles' The Story of Psychology: A Thematic History.
The Discourse presented not only some of Descartes' mathematical ideas but also much of his philosophical thinking. Here is where we find him wondering if anything is really the way it appears, and wondering what one can believe in, in view of all the illusions we know of. His famous answer to this dilemma, the philosopher's dilemma, was that he could believe in his own doubts, his own thoughts. He said, "I think, therefore I am." (Bolles, 1993, p.26)
a) Provide a paraphrase of this excerpt.
Criteria
Criterion Self-Assessment Instructor Assessment
Demonstrates
understanding of
citation/quotation
rules by correctly
identifying sources of
ideas and of words in
excerpts (#1)
Demonstrates ability to
follow
citation/quotation
rules in the context of
her own paraphrase
(#2-5).
Demonstrates
understanding of the
requirements for
adequate paraphrase
(#2-5).
Demonstrates
understanding of when
to quote and when to
paraphrase (#2-5)