{"id":1441,"date":"2017-10-31T09:46:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T16:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2017-10-31T09:46:41","modified_gmt":"2017-10-31T16:46:41","slug":"not-a-plagiarism-foul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2017\/10\/31\/not-a-plagiarism-foul\/","title":{"rendered":"No plagiarism foul"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">A super-smart student in my Advanced Professional Communications class asked me whether using an app that generates a citation for you in proper APA, MLA, Chicago style was plagiarism. My first thought was \u201cI doubt it,\u201d but in my line of work I\u2019m surrounded by plagiarism hounds so I wanted to be sure. I consulted some expert Facebook friends.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">My friend <a href=\"https:\/\/uk.linkedin.com\/in\/leigh-giurlando-10a46029\"><span class=\"s2\">Leigh<\/span><\/a>, a high-school librarian working in England whom I\u2019ve known since fifth grade, posted first: \u201cHaha. No. It&#8217;s just a tool, wouldn&#8217;t you think? Most journal databases (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/\"><span class=\"s2\">jstor<\/span><\/a>, etc.) provide all variations of citations to use, as well.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">No Contest Communications cofounder <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bfwriter\"><span class=\"s2\">Tierney<\/span><\/a> was emphatic: &#8220;Goodness no. If you are doing citations correctly, it is not a creative project; it should produce a uniform result. These tools simply help automate that process. I copy and paste mine from Google Scholar, but I also verify their content (sometimes page numbers are missing.&#8221;\u00a0She added\u00a0this excellent analogy \/ rhetorical question: &#8220;Is it plagiarism to use a tool like <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/SPSS\"><span class=\"s2\">SPSS<\/span><\/a> to run your stats and produce your diagrams instead of doing it all by hand?&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Author and retired university librarian <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/suzyszasz\"><span class=\"s2\">Suzy<\/span><\/a> chimed in on a related issue: &#8220;There\u2019s nothing wrong with using a citation-generator app<em> to find<\/em> citations. All journal-content databases make it easier to &#8216;find&#8217; citations than ever.\u00a0But a student shouldn\u2019t cite those in a paper unless s\/he has actually consulted those sources. I still wouldn\u2019t call it plagiarism; that\u2019s just a failure to check your own sources before citing them &#8211; no different from citing a source from a bibliography (the old-fashioned way) without consulting the source.&#8221; Suzy noted that the formatting of these automated citations &#8220;isn\u2019t 100% accurate, so a student (or professor) should always double-check. For what it\u2019s worth, in my experience, faculty make plenty of errors in their citations!&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A super-smart student in my Advanced Professional Communications class asked me whether using an app that generates a citation for you in proper APA, MLA, Chicago style was plagiarism. My first thought was \u201cI doubt it,\u201d but in my line &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2017\/10\/31\/not-a-plagiarism-foul\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[9,12,42,43,88,101],"class_list":["post-1441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roberts-posts","tag-academic-writing","tag-apps","tag-for-educators","tag-for-students","tag-research","tag-tools"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}