Views of Plagiarism tutorial Xiao Yang

The online plagiarism tutorial on esl.osu.edu mainly discussed the problem of plagiarism and how to prevent it. In Question four, It examines the situation of group study and suggested that we cite other’s idea as “personal communication”. This really helps me to figure out how to distinguish ideas and intellectual property. On the other hand, Question eight discussed how to cite from Internet. It is a dilemma for us that Internet is designed to share ideas to others, although the information given by others may lead us to plagiarism.

This tutorial is really helpful to me. As an undergraduate student, there will be plenty discussions in class and in research programs. It’s relatively easy to commit plagiarisms in that situation because undergraduate students almost have no experience on it. In my opinion, the best way to solve those kinds of problem is to ask my professors who have more experience on it. They know what things I can do or not. Solving the problem about Internet in problem eight can be in same way. Ask professor first, do some paraphrasing and add my own thought in the article. I consider keeping the academic integrity is more important to a graduate student. If he or she doesn’t care about and don’t know how solve those problems in university, it will troubles him more severely when he is in a competitive company.