Identical phrasing, e.g., “The formula uses a model of a random surfer who
gets bored after several clicks and switches to a random page”
Same basic example of links between pages A, B, C, and D
Both of these look like examples of plagiarism, although we can’t say who
copied from whom (or if both pages are one author re-using his or her own
words)
Exercise
Write your own one-sentence description of a candy bucket
“The orange bucket with a face on it, is filled with candy for
Halloween.”
“The orange, candy-filled pumpkin has a sweet face.”
“The orange Halloween bucket at the front of the classroom is
approximately half filled with candy.”
“The candy bucket resembles a jack-o-lantern: it is orange and has a
black face with a toothy grin printed on it.”
“Orange bucket of candy with a face on it”
“It is bright orange, filled halfway with candy, and is missing a
handle.”
“An orange pumpkin shaped halloween bucket filled with candy”
“The Candy Bucket is in the shape of a pumpkin, the color being orange
with the eyes and mouth being both black.”
“The candy bucket is orange and has a pumpkin-like face with three
teeth.”
“In the front of the room there is an orange candy bucket in the shape
of a pumpkin with a face on it. The mouth on the face only has three teeth.
The bucket is missing its handle and is about half way full of candy.”
“It’s a fun a little orange bucket with a painted on jack-o-lantern face
on the front of it.”
“The candy bucket of professor is pumpkin shaped”
“A candy bucket designed to resemble a pumpkin. It’s a pale orange
with two black eyes, a black nose, and a black mouth grinning with 3 teeth.
It’s filled about half full with various sweets. It also has two handles on top
opposite of each other.”
Moral: even though this involved lots of people describing the same simple thing,
and even though many people focused on the same features, everyone had their own
way of saying it, everyone had different details they picked out, etc.
It’s hard for genuinely independent work to look like plagiarism
Avoiding plagiarism
Be careful to cite anything that comes from someone else
Which of course requires keeping track of what comes from where as you research
What to cite
Quotations
Paraphrases/summaries
But generally not your own interpretations of or introductions to others’
material, even if you mention those others in your text
How to cite
Frame quotations/paraphrases with text that identifies the start and end of
the outside material
Sometimes this can be citation markers
In the case of quotations, it’s also done with punctuation (e.g., quotation
marks) or formatting (e.g., indenting)
Next
Logic in writing
Read the “Logic in Argumentative Writing” section of Purdue’s OWL
(except for “Improprieties”)