What sites do you not cite?
The semester is winding down, and we’re all starting some sort of final projects in our classes. These projects may be paintings, sculptures, music recitals, science labs, final math calculations or the dreaded research paper. The easiest way to do a research paper is to do it right the first time.
Lately there’s been a lot of controversy on campus about cheating and plagiarism and, if there’s one basic thing a student can do to prevent getting knocked down on a paper, it’s to cite the right sources. If your research is in order and you’re not copying directly from the source, the rest of the paper should be relatively easy.
Here are some important “dont’s” and “do’s” for research papers:
DON’T use Wikipedia for scholarly subjects or academic papers.
DON’T take everything you see on Wikipedia for the truth; I could log on right now and say that Lady Gaga was the first president of the United States.
DON’T use only one source to gather data for a research paper or project.
DON’T use SparkNotes. DON’T use CliffsNotes.
DON’T plagiarize.
DO use Wikipedia for popular culture and subjects not addressed in scholarly literature.
DO double check everything you read on several different sites.
DO be aware that professors have handy tools and are able to enter a phrase from your paper into a search engine to see if it matches any other documents and can tell almost instantly if you are using someone else’s work.
DO paraphrase, and then cite.
DO find Web sites that end in .gov, .edu or .org.
DO be aware that professors sometimes get test questions and material from Sparknotes and other like minded cites. The point is, they go there and they’ll know if you do, too.
MOST IMPORTANT DO be aware that plagiarism will not only cause you to fail an assignment, but can result in failing the class, being kicked off a sports team and, in extreme cases, expulsion.
