Activity
Day One
1. Before class begins, write the following starter question
on the board: “What is plagiarism”. Many students
may not be familiar with this term, and may simply refer to
it as “copying”. Have the class write the definition
of the word according to them. Give them a few minutes.
2.
Discuss with the class their interpretation of this word.
What does
it mean to plagiarize someone else’s work?
What are the punishments at your school or in this class
for such behavior? Ask students to comment on this. Ask them
to
consider a different situation. Imagine that you are a rock
star or a recording artist, perhaps a rapper. What would
happen if some other artist stole a song you had written,
recorded
the song, and made millions from it? You wrote it, but another
benefited from it. What would result? Probably a complicated
law suit, besides frustration and resentment. Explain to
the class that plagiarism in all forms is illegal, and a
very serious
matter.
3.
Ask the students if they know how a writer can use the
ideas of another without plagiarizing. Take a few
minutes
to gather
student ideas and suggestions, writing these on the board.
Students may come up with “use quotes” or “give
credit to the original author”, but they may need
some help. Inform the class that using quotes and giving
credit
to an original work or author is called “citing your
sources”. This process allows us to use information
from many different sources without compromising the rights
of the
authors. Ask the class why this is so important when doing
research, and discuss answers.
4.
For the last portion of the period, about 25 minutes,
tell the class that we are
going to learn more about how
to document
our resources in research papers. You may wish to give
them more specific guidelines once in the lab, such as “How
do you cite a book with one author?” or “How
do you cite an internet source?” Students should
take notes about how to cite various sources according
to the format you
would like them to use (MLA or AMA). Direct them to the
appropriate web site (see above).
Day
Two
1. Begin class with a few questions to see what students
understood from the previous day’s work in the
lab. You might post some testing questions on the board,
such as:
- How
do I cite a magazine article with two authors?
- How
would I cite an encyclopedia article with several
editors?
- I
used a book by William Anchor, called Common Water
Contaminants, published by Hoffman and Brooks
in 1995, in the city of Atlanta. I used information from pages
34-45. How do I cite this source?
Give
the students about 10 minutes to answer these questions,
which should be evaluated for correctness. Students don’t
necessarily have to know citation format from memory,
but encourage them to use their notes, which they collected
the previous day in the lab. Review answers with the
class, and discuss again why we need to cite our sources.
2.
Tell the class that today you going to revisit the
computer lab in order to continue practicing using proper
citation
techniques. Now that we know how a little bit about how
to write citations, it is important to give the students
a practical
use for this tool. Ask the class, by a show of hands, how
many resources they used to gather information for their
final research projects. Did they use 5 sources? 10? 15?
Ask the class: “What might be a good way to credit
all of these authors in your final projects?” Take
some suggestions, and explain that the place in the paper
where sources are referenced is simply called a “works
cited” page, which goes at the end of their research
document. Outline how you would like this works cited page
to look when finished.
3.
Proceed to the computer lab. Students should about 25
minutes to compose their works cited pages.
Some may need
to go back to the library at a later time to review the
resources they used, or they may look up texts they have
used on the
internet (see Library of Congress site). Closure
You may decide to give the class a short quiz
at the end of the period, or at some later time, in order to
test their understanding of citation format.
Embedded
Assessment
Student responses during discussion should be evaluated
for understanding the serious nature of plagiarism. Also,
starter questions for the second day should be evaluated
for correct use of citation format, as well as the final
assignment (the works cited page). Homework
Works cited
page may be assigned for homework if you feel that students
have a strong enough grasp of citation procedures. If you are
unsure of the students understanding of this process, assign
them several sample sources of different types, including a
book, a newspaper article, an internet site, and an encyclopedia,
all of which they must cite correctly using MLA or AMA format. Encourage
them to refer back to the appropriate web site or reference
text to check their citations.
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