APA style and citations for dummies - Joe Giampalmi 2021

Avoiding plagiarism: your responsibilities
Protecting scholarship: plagiarism
Conforming to standards: APA and the academic environment

You’ve been warned about plagiarism since you submitted your first assignment that included a list of sources called a bibliography, a cool word for a young scholar. You were threatened with plagiarism penalties such as 20 years’ hard labor, 40 days of bread and water, and forfeiture of your video-gaming system. You heeded the threats, and you’re in college today where the penalties are harsher. Plagiarism can derail a career and stigmatize violators for a lifetime. A quick online search reveals a surprising list of plagiarists.

Intentional plagiarism, such as buying a paper or copying and pasting text, represents a breech of academic integrity and results in serious consequences, including revoking degrees after graduation and a transcript notation indicating that you committed plagiarism. Unintentional plagiarism, which is disciplined less seriously in some universities and more consequential in others, takes an emotional toll in all situations. Unintentional plagiarism can be avoided, and a good night’s sleep assured, with responsible academic practices that include the following.

Manage your time wisely

Managing time wisely reduces stress, a contributor to plagiarism that pressures you to accomplish more in less time. Time management helps you avoid academic pressure caused by too many assignments due in too few days. Begin assignments early and progress regularly. Your university offers resources for helping you manage your time.

Advocate academic integrity

You’re an intelligent academic person, probably assertive, and the significant adults in your life taught you right from wrong. You bought this book because you take pride in APA academic accuracy and also honesty. Become an activist for academic integrity. When appropriate, defend your belief with your peers. Read your school’s academic honesty policy and ask your professors questions about acceptable practices for assignments. Be a source of accurate information for your peers. Do your part to prevent your university becoming a victim of degree deflation.

Identify assignment limitations

Responsible academic practices begin by studying the syllabus and the assignment. The syllabus provides general integrity parameters for assignments, answering questions such as these:

· What are collaboration parameters for team assignments?

· Are assignments individually or team structured?

· Are specific research sources authorized or unauthorized?

· Is collaboration with a peer or family member authorized?

· Is collaboration with other professors authorized?

Detail your research

Generations ago, when high tech included pens that wrote on upward inclines, researching was organized on note cards that recorded source identification and cards that recorded source information in the form of summaries, paraphrase, and quotations. The principles for word processing research remain the same as for the card system. Each time you identify a source, record the elements needed to enter it in the reference list. As you identify information from each source, record it as a summary, paraphrase, or direct quotation, and record page numbers.

A strategy for successful paraphrasing includes turning aside after reading the selection and writing your paraphrase without looking at the selection. (See Chapter 11 for detailed information on paraphrasing.) Unintentional plagiarism frequently results from the careless transfer of documentation information from your notes to your writing.

Approach your documentation sequentially by following these steps:

1. Identify a source.

2. Record reference elements.

3. Extract information (summary, paraphrase, or quotation).

4. Identify page numbers.

5. Integrate the idea into the text.

6. Create the citation and enter the source into a reference item.

Practice responsible citing

Your best defense against plagiarism is responsible citing. APA follows a consistent format for citations: Record the author and date, separated by a comma (Aston, 2020). For quotations, APA requires page numbers (Aston, 2020, p. 245). Many professors require a page number for paraphrase and summaries, but APA doesn’t require it. For more on citations, see Chapter 10.

Utilize APA feedback resources

An effective approach to plagiarism protection is to have your APA citations and references reviewed by available resources, primarily your professor and writing center. When you contact your professor (by email or before or after class), clarify that you’re requesting 15 minutes during office hours for the exclusive purpose of verifying your citations and references. Bring your research notes and this book. Show how organized you are by annotating your research paper, for example, by highlighting the information taken from your source (summary, paraphrase, and quotations) and underlining the attribution and signal phrase (see Chapter 11).

Team assignments also require adherence to standards of academic integrity and present additional challenges, with each team member held accountable for plagiarism by other team members. For example, if one team member plagiarizes, all team members are responsible for having submitted a plagiarized assignment. Honor codes intensify individual responsibilities by mandating that you report team members who plagiarize (see the nearby sidebar for more about honor codes). Many professors preview plagiarism before team assignments and require identification of team responsibilities for each section of team assignments.

Steer clear of unreliable strategies

Some common practices by inexperienced researchers produce a higher probability of plagiarism. Avoid these unreliable research strategies:

· Super citations: A misrepresentation of crediting sources includes locating a citation at the end of a large section and thinking, “This is a super citation that credits everything I referenced in the previous section.” Citations need to clearly identify the information they’re referencing. Chapter 10 explains citations in detail and the importance of citing immediately following the referenced information.

· Citation procrastination: An inadvertent form of plagiarism — but student accountable — results from carelessly recording the citation in your notes, and being unable to accurately retrieve it to cite it. Accurate citations begin with accurate note taking.

· Conditional common knowledge: Common knowledge is a classification of information that generally doesn’t require citations. However, it also includes a number of exceptions that require citations such as statistical data, disputable facts, and information not specific to the audience. (I detail common knowledge in Chapter 10.)

If you need to defend yourself against plagiarism, your best evidence is in the form of detailed notes that show your source in question, your extracted information, your reference in your text, and your citation.

Plagiarism-detection software is available with a variety of features, such as the ability to identify words, phrases, and sentences that require citations and also to check grammar and perform editing. Some versions are free, and some require a subscription. Most universities provide plagiarism software for faculty use. Common plagiarism-detection software includes Turnitin, CheckForPlagiarism, Grammarly, PlagiarismCheckerX, Noplag, Copyscape, CopyLeaks, and WhiteSmoke. With the evolution of artificial intelligence software, the capability to write essays should be available in the near future that will present another challenge to universities’ battle against plagiarism.

Resumes are designed to reveal organizational and visual aesthetics with a ten-second glance, an eye test. A quick glance at a research paper can reveal potential indicators of plagiarism. Table 4-1 shows some examples of what a quick glance reveals about indicators of plagiarism.

TABLE 4-1 Plagiarism versus Academic Integrity

Plagiarism policy consequences

Most universities publish an academic integrity policy that includes definitions of academic misconduct. The policy, which identifies academic integrity expectations, contains examples of policy violations. The policy also includes university disciplinary actions that correspond with violations.

Academic integrity policies generally include three to five violation levels, ranging from inadvertent and unintentional plagiarism to a violation such as falsifying final grades. Levels of discipline include a transcript notation, academic probation, suspension, degree revocation, and expulsion. Repeated offenses raise the level of consequences. Alleged violations are presented to a review board consisting of students, faculty, and administrators.

Some universities administer minor discipline for minor violations such as neglecting to acknowledge sources for a few words or a sentence. Minor disciplining may include writing the paper without receiving a grade and scoring the paper one grade lower than the grade it would have received.