Introduction
Plagiarism is a serious academic violation that has been a center of attention for many universities and colleges. As stated by Smedley, Crawford, and Cloete (2015) nursing is a profession that requires high ethical standards. Therefore, by committing academic misconducts I would compromise my moral standards. This would impact my professional life as I would not be able to perform my duties with honor.
In my opinion, there are several reasons why students plagiarize. Firstly, some can be unaware of the proper citation techniques. Therefore, they disregard the rules and use other people’s ideas when writing their assignments without realizing the problem. Secondly, there are people that do not consider plagiarism a serious issue. Therefore, they disregard the rules when writing papers. The final reason for plagiarism is trying to cheat. Some people might think it is a way to make their education process more manageable and less stressful through cooping other person’s work.
In my opinion, it is difficult to determine whether a student plagiarized intentionally and unintentionally. Due to this fact, the penalties for both violations should be the same. While it is an important issue, I do not think that expelling one from a college or a university for the misconduct is an unnecessary measure. The purpose of these institutions should be on educating people. Therefore, I would implement a mandatory lecture on the topic of plagiarism for those who were accused of the misconduct. In this way, the institution will provide the knowledge to these people on why plagiarism is unacceptable. However, this is a solution only in case a person was caught violating the policies once. In case such violation reoccurs, the institution should implement stricter punishment.
Quotation, Paraphrase, and Summary
The difference between the three citation methods is significant. Quoting is using the exact words that were utilized in the original source (Martin & Spitak, 2014). This method is appropriate for complicated and technical information. In this case, nothing from the original quote can be changed. Martin and Spitak (2014) argue that paraphrasing is the most challenging method out of the three. It is easy to misinterpret the idea or plagiarize when trying to paraphrase. The technique is appropriate when using a sentence from the original work. Summarizing ideas from a paper or a book is the most appropriate method as it gives an understanding of the author’s thoughts in general, as opposed to paraphrasing where only a sentence is used. In this case, there is no need to struggle with choosing words for paraphrasing to convey a particular idea. The method is appropriate when integrating a shorter version of the paragraphs, written by the original author (Martin & Spitak, 2014). In my research paper, I will utilize these three methods. I will use the direct quotations for technical information, paraphrasing for integration of sentences and summary for paragraph integration.
Quotation
As Wright, Giger, Norris, and Suro (2013) stated, “engaging in the regular physical activity is widely accepted as an effective preventative measure for a variety of obesity-related chronic diseases including diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease. However, many underserved children do not meet these recommendations. Rather, they are spending the majority of their time engaging in sedentary activities (e.g., playing video games or watching TV).” (p. 730).
Paraphrase
A widely accepted preventative measure for obesity-related illness is regular physical activity. Despite that, many children chose to engage in sedentary activities (Wright et al., 2013).
Summary
A common problem of children with obesity-related diseases is the fact that they choose activities that are not beneficial to them (Wright et al., 2013).
References
Martin, P., & Spitak, S. J. (2014). Integrating your sources: Quotations, paraphrasing, and summarizing. Web.
Smedley, A., Crawford, T., & Cloete, L. (2015). An intervention aimed at reducing plagiarism in undergraduate nursing students. Nurse Education in Practice, 15(3), 168-173. Web.
Wright, K., Giger, J. N., Norris, K., & Suro, Z. (2013). Impact of a nurse-directed, coordinated school health program to enhance physical activity behaviors and reduce body mass index among minority children: A parallel-group, randomized control trial. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 50(6) 727-737. Web.