Re: [ECOLOG-L] Using Turnitin in science classes

2018-02-05 Thread Emily Moran 
If you open the submitted paper and look at the phrases highlighted by the 
similarity checker, it usually becomes clear what is going on: whether the 
issue is the bibliography, or whether indeed whole sentences have been copied 
inappropriately.

In terms of avoiding plagiarism, and teaching students to use citations 
correctly, I’ve found that it is helpful to explicitly go over:
A) What is plagiarism?  Turnitin has a valuable info graphic on their website 
that points out that plagiarism isn’t just copying a whole paper: “remixing” 
sentences from different sources, using direct quotations without quotation 
marks (even if cited), etc. are problematic too.
B) What is the purpose of a citation?  Once you point out that it is not to 
give an excuse to copy wording, or just  to make yourself sound authoritative, 
it is to allow your readers to look up that source for themselves if they wish 
to get more information, then it becomes clear why certain information is 
needed in the citation.
C) What is an acceptable source?  This will vary by class, but is worthwhile to 
discuss how to tell if something is a reasonably reliable source or not.
D) Why don’t scientific papers use quotation?  A lot of students don’t realize 
that the only reason to include a direct quotation is if the exact wording 
matters, and that is more likely to be the case in an English class essay than 
in a scientific paper.

Including some of this instruction cut way down on the inappropriate copying in 
Evolution papers last semester.

Emily Moran
UC Merced

On Feb 2, 2018, at 7:33 PM, cruzan > 
wrote:


In science writing you will naturally get replication of words because of 
literature cited and sometimes the methods section - for standard procedures 
there are a limited number of ways to say it. Taking this into account, I would 
be suspect of student reports that rise above 20% similarity to other works, 
and certainly those that are over 30% are likely to have plagiarized. As you 
mention, phrases or sentences of more than 8-10 words that are not part of the 
methods or literature cited sections were most likely copied from other sources.

Mitch Cruzan

On 2/2/2018 7:02 PM, Jorge A. Santiago-Blay wrote:
Using Turnitin in science classes

Dear Colleagues:

Finally, I have decided to begin using Turnitin in some of my science classes, 
including environmental sciences. As a beginning user of Turnitin, I have 
received valuable feedback on some of the technical settings. However, I have 
not received feedback on what I considered to be areas where the proverbial 
rubber meets the road (listed below):

1. How long a string of words do you allow to be OK.? I was suggested 8 words 
(no scientific rationale behind that was provided).

2. What percentage of similarity is considered to be enough to trigger 
reporting a work to the superiors for "dishonesty" (or whatever it is called in 
your schools; after checking with the filters, etc.)

3. Any sliding scale for smaller "offenses" re. percentage of similarity

If you have something constructive to communicate pertaining what do you do in 
your courses or what is the policy at your institution, please, feel free to 
email me directly:

blayjo...@gmail.com

Apologies for potential duplicate emails.

Sincerely,

Jorge

Jorge A. Santiago-Blay, PhD
blaypublishers.com


1. Positive experiences for authors of papers published in LEB 
http://blaypublishers.com/testimonials/

2. Free examples of papers published in LEB: 
http://blaypublishers.com/category/previous-issues/.

3. Guidelines for Authors and page charges of LEB: 
http://blaypublishers.com/archives/ .

4. Want to subscribe to LEB? http://blaypublishers.com/subscriptions/


http://blayjorge.wordpress.com/
http://paleobiology.si.edu/staff/individuals/santiagoblay.cfm

--

Mitch Cruzan
Professor of Biology
Portland State University
PO Box 751
Portland, OR 97207 USA
Web: http://web.pdx.edu/~cruzan/

Re: [ECOLOG-L] Using Turnitin in science classes

2018-02-02 Thread cruzan 
In science writing you will naturally get replication of words because 
of literature cited and sometimes the methods section - for standard 
procedures there are a limited number of ways to say it. Taking this 
into account, I would be suspect of student reports that rise above 20% 
similarity to other works, and certainly those that are over 30% are 
likely to have plagiarized. As you mention, phrases or sentences of more 
than 8-10 words that are not part of the methods or literature cited 
sections were most likely copied from other sources.


Mitch Cruzan


On 2/2/2018 7:02 PM, Jorge A. Santiago-Blay wrote:

Using Turnitin in science classes

Dear Colleagues:

Finally, I have decided to begin using Turnitin in some of my science 
classes, including environmental sciences. As a beginning user of 
Turnitin, I have received valuable feedback on some of the technical 
settings. However, I have not received feedback on what I considered 
to be areas where the proverbial rubber meets the road (listed below):


1. How long a string of words do you allow to be OK.? I was suggested 
8 words (no scientific rationale behind that was provided).


2. What percentage of similarity is considered to be enough to trigger 
reporting a work to the superiors for "dishonesty" (or whatever it is 
called in your schools; after checking with the filters, etc.)


3. Any sliding scale for smaller "offenses" re. percentage of similarity

If you have something constructive to communicate pertaining what do 
you do in your courses or what is the policy at your institution, 
please, feel free to email me directly:


blayjo...@gmail.com 

Apologies for potential duplicate emails.

Sincerely,

Jorge

Jorge A. Santiago-Blay, PhD
blaypublishers.com 

1. Positive experiences for authors of papers published in */LEB/* 
http://blaypublishers.com/testimonials/


2. Free examples of papers published in */LEB/*: 
http://blaypublishers.com/category/previous-issues/.


3. /Guidelines for Authors/ and page charges of */LEB/*: 
http://blaypublishers.com/archives//./


4. Want to subscribe to */LEB/*? http://blaypublishers.com/subscriptions/


http://blayjorge.wordpress.com/
http://paleobiology.si.edu/staff/individuals/santiagoblay.cfm


--

Mitch Cruzan
Professor of Biology
Portland State University
PO Box 751
Portland, OR 97207 USA
Web: http://web.pdx.edu/~cruzan/

[ECOLOG-L] Using Turnitin in science classes

2018-02-02 Thread Jorge A. Santiago-Blay 
Using Turnitin in science classes

Dear Colleagues:

Finally, I have decided to begin using Turnitin in some of my science
classes, including environmental sciences. As a beginning user of Turnitin,
I have received valuable feedback on some of the technical settings.
However, I have not received feedback on what I considered to be areas
where the proverbial rubber meets the road (listed below):

1. How long a string of words do you allow to be OK.? I was suggested 8
words (no scientific rationale behind that was provided).

2. What percentage of similarity is considered to be enough to trigger
reporting a work to the superiors for "dishonesty" (or whatever it is
called in your schools; after checking with the filters, etc.)

3. Any sliding scale for smaller "offenses" re. percentage of similarity

If you have something constructive to communicate pertaining what do you do
in your courses or what is the policy at your institution, please, feel
free to email me directly:

blayjo...@gmail.com

Apologies for potential duplicate emails.

Sincerely,

Jorge

Jorge A. Santiago-Blay, PhD
blaypublishers.com

1. Positive experiences for authors of papers published in *LEB*
http://blaypublishers.com/testimonials/

2. Free examples of papers published in *LEB*:
http://blaypublishers.com/category/previous-issues/.

3. *Guidelines for Authors* and page charges of *LEB*:
http://blaypublishers.com/archives/ *.*

4. Want to subscribe to *LEB*? http://blaypublishers.com/subscriptions/


http://blayjorge.wordpress.com/
http://paleobiology.si.edu/staff/individuals/santiagoblay.cfm