When I entered in the University of the Philippines, I have been warned by the old students and teachers that cheating is a mortal sin in this institution. Plagiarism is a big crime that students commonly commit. It is copying of someone's idea without acknowledging the source and without putting it into your own words. It maybe because they don't know what it is or they may have done it intently for its convenience. I can't also deny that I have done it too.
In the plagiarism exercise, the Student revision 1 is guilty of plagiarism first of all because the student failed to site or give credit to his sources. This revision appears to be the original work of the student since it doesn't mention about sources. Thus, he just committed intellectual dishonesty. Second, most of the text were copied from the sources without paraphrasing those text. It is very obvious in every sentence that he copied that he just changes some words into their synonyms. This practice is common among students. I even thought that changing a one or two word in a sentence that I have copied from sources would not make me guilty from plagiarism.
In the Student revision 2, this may have recognized its source but the student did not paraphrase the words he copied from its source. The student did not also use proper citation in his revision. So, Student revision 2 is still guilty of plagiarism. Citation is important so that readers will know the sources and may look at them for additional information. Citations can also be a sort of reference for the readers to check for the writer's accurateness. Gardner also noted that:
"The addition of explanations, comparisons, contrasts and comments is better because it shows that the information has been read, analysed and understood."
Thus, we cannot only rely on the sources in making an output but we can use them to make some arguments, observations and conclusions. The two students must have done this in making their revisions to make it better.
Reference:
Gardner, David. Paraphrasing (re-writing in your own words). Retrieved June 20, 2011, from
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