I was just wondering what your school of nursing considered plagerism? We have a teacher who considers plagerism if you have two words alike in the same sentence!!!??? A lot of our class was in trouble with our case studies because of this and I think it is ridiculous! I was one of the lucky ones who didnt have that particular teacher grading my paper. Please respond:confused:

Hmmmm. Plagiarism is taking the written work of another person and passing it off as your own, without giving credit to the original author. It is VERY against the law, even though college students and other people have been doing it for centuries.

Either you or your instructor is confused as to the definition of plagiarism. Using the same word twice in one sentence is NOT plagiarism. It may be redundant, and unimaginative, but that is something that can be fixed with a Thesaurus.

My instructors were pretty particular about citation. Even my political science and other classes were pretty picky. Most books will tell you that anything that is considered "common knowledge" does not have to be cited. However, if there is a concept that is not or the particular slant on a issue is one you agree with using a simple citation at the beginning of the sentance should suffice. (I agree with **** when he/she presents the opinion *****)then cite the page of the idea.

Paraphrasing does have to be cited and that is where most may have gotten in trouble. A good thesaurus should keep people out of trouble if using the same word is an issue.

It does sound like they are being a little persnickity about citation. Wouldnt it be interesting to see how the instructor set up their papers when they did theirs in school? The instructor must have a lot of time on their hands to be able to compare wording that closely.

Even if one were to summarize the ideas of another writer in their own words, not giving due credit to the original writer is plagerism. Several of my friends have had to learn this the hard way by receiving Fs on term papers. Most instructors explain plagerism and its ramifications in their course syllabus. Also, it does not matter if the the plagerism was accidental either, most "die-hard" instructors will not allow it to slip.

Linda

Hi Snbrcc,

Two words? That's crazy! Especially in the field of scientific writing where terminology is so important. It's not like there's another word for "Blood Pressue" or a lot of new ways to describe what it is or how to take it.

I'm not in nursing school yet but when I was in college teachers rarely ever commented on Plagerism. Some would say on the first day of class that it would not be tolerated but most would only be able to catch it if it was blatant.

I think that sometimes students accidently plagarize. Not word for word but maybe in general lay out and concept. When you're writing in the sciences I think it's hard not to.

We have to cite summaries & Paraphrases. Any thing that is not our original idea must be cited. Even using the original authors writing style or sentence structure is considered plagerism here. The best thing for us to do is just cite, cite, cite.

Please, folks-it is P L A G I A R I S M.

http://www.fno.org/may98/cov98may.html

I should have been more specific. I do not believe in taking someone else's work and making it your own. When I said taking two words the same I meant if you stated their sentence in your paper and had two of the same words they did AND cited them she considered it plagerism!