Blog 4 Xinyi

OSU online plagiarism tutorial provides a series of questions concerning plagiarism in university. In question 3, a secondary citation is discussed. When there is a primary source which is cited by the writer you read that is quite useful and you want to use it. However, it is difficult to identify the person who first owns this idea. Weather to ignore the citation or still use it remains a problem. The appropriate way to do this is to find the original article and read it. It is safe because the secondary article may alter part of the original idea. Question 6 discusses a situation in which a teacher uses students’ work in class as their own property. It is clear that teachers should ask students for permission to do this.

After this tutorial, I found these questions are common in university life and sometimes quite controversial. However the explanations are critical and benefit me a lot. The multiple questions may have one more correct answer, however the best way to avoid plagiarism is only one. As an undergraduate student, it is vital for me to understand and use reference rule correctly, as well as forming my own stance based on others’ ideas.