Quiz #2
Is this dishonest?
- You are working on a computer lab at a public work station. You finish your work, save it to your thumb drive and leave, forgetting to delete your work from the work station. Another student in your class comes along, finds your file and turns it in as her own. Are you responsible for academic dishonesty?
- You are taking a mid-term in a large lecture room and some notes that you brought with you slide out from under the seat where you had stowed them. Can you be charged with academic dishonesty?
- You ask your instructor whether she would be willing to read a draft of an essay that is due in a week. Your essay contains paraphrases of secondary sources that you used in your essay but haven’t marked yet as the ideas of other people. You figure this is okay, since this is a draft of the essay and not the final copy you plan to turn in. Is this considered academic dishonesty?
- Your instructor writes you an email stating that he believes you may have committed an act of academic dishonesty in his class. You panic and withdraw from the course. You are later called before the Board on Academic Honesty. At the hearing, you are shocked to learn that you have been reinstated in the class. Are you still responsible for finishing the class?
- You enroll in a two-credit dance class. Besides learning different kinds of movement, you also have to write a five-page essay on a topic assigned by the instructor. You use a lot of material from the internet in your essay and don’t have time to cite it properly. You figure this is okay since most of the grade is based on your dance performance. Besides, it is only a two-credit dance class and not a real academic course and the instructor didn’t say anything about citation. Are you guilty of plagiarism?
- You ask a friend, who is a good writer, to look over your paper. She is happy to help and finds many awkward phrases and ambiguous assertions, which she re-writes for you. She even develops a few new arguments to help support your thesis. You are happy because she was able to express clearly and persuasively what you had been trying to say all along. Is this academic dishonesty?
- You need a permission code to get into a lab section. Your instructor gives you the code, which you share with a friend who wants to be in the same section. Can you be charged with academic dishonesty?
- You notice that a paper assignment in your class is just like one you wrote for another class. You change the cover sheet and a few sentences in the introduction and turn it in. This is okay because it is your own work, right?
- Your instructor allows collaboration on homework assignments and encourages study groups but still expects you to do your own work. You and two friends discuss the problem and work through it together. Portions of your final work are identical, but that should be okay, since most of the work is your own. Can you be charged with academic dishonesty?
- You are shocked to see that you received a failing grade in your literature class. You thought you were doing quite well and had a “B” average for the class. When you contact your instructor to find out why you failed, he confronts you with evidence that you plagiarized portions of your last essay. “Any student who plagiarizes in my class, fails,” he tells you. “No exceptions.” Is that the end of the matter?
- A good friend of yours is desperate. He is in danger of failing the biology class you are both in. If he fails, he will be placed on academic probation. He knows you are an excellent student and asks you to sit at the next exam in such a way that he can see your answers. It’s the only way he’ll pass the class. His request makes you uncomfortable, but, since you’re not the one copying answers, you figure you will not be charged with academic dishonesty. Are you right?
- You are in an advanced language class and are stumped trying to write a composition so you write some sentences in English and use an automatic translation program on the internet to help you out. This is okay, since it’s like using a dictionary, and the instructor said dictionaries were allowed. Is that academically honest?
Answer Key
- Possibly.Students have the responsibility of protecting their work from being used dishonestly. If another student makes use of your work even without your knowledge, you may still bear some responsibility for inadvertently helping another student to cheat. Your responsibility or exoneration would depend on how negligent you were about protecting your work. Certainly, if a student goes to great lengths to steal your work despite all reasonable precautions taken by you, you would not be found responsible for aiding a dishonest act. However, you should always keep your work to yourself as much as possible. Lending a friend a paper so that he can use it as a guide to writing his own, for instance, may implicate you in academic dishonesty if your friend uses your ideas, phrases, or passages in his paper, even if you never encouraged him to do so. It is never wise to share your work with others when collaboration is not allowed, and it is a violation of the Academic Honesty Policy to share completed assignments in a form that can be copied.
- Yes.Improper storage of prohibited notes, course materials, and study aids during an exam such that they are accessible or possible to view is a violation of the Academic Honesty Policy. Always make sure that any notes or study aids that you bring to an exam are safely stowed away in closed bags kept well out of view.
- Yes.You are responsible for correctly citing all ideas, phrases, and passages taken from other authors wherever they occur in your work, even in drafts of your papers. Failure to do so is plagiarism, a violation of the Academic Honesty Policy.
- Yes, in almost all instances. Once a charge of academic dishonesty has been brought, you must remain enrolled in the class unless the case is resolved in one of the following two ways:
- If you have signed an Instructor Resolution Warning Letter offered by your instructor, you may drop or withdraw from the course once the Warning Letter has been approved by the Board on Academic Honesty.
- If you are exonerated by the Board after a hearing, then you may drop or withdraw from the course. If you withdraw before your case is resolved or after you are found responsible under either the Instructor Resolution with Penalty process or Board Resolution process, you will be reinstated in the class.
No matter how difficult it is to stay in a course in which the professor has accused you of dishonesty, you must continue to attend class and fulfill all class obligations.
- Yes.You are responsible for correctly citing all ideas, phrases, and passages taken from other authors wherever they occur in your work, even in drafts of your papers. Failure to do so is plagiarism, a violation of the Academic Honesty Policy.
- Yes.It is a good idea to have others proofread your work to identify mistakes in spelling, punctuation, syntax and style, unless such proofreading is expressly prohibited. But you are being dishonest for claiming authorship of any content added by your friend. Your instructor would have every right to turn you over to the board if she suspects that you received unauthorized aid in fulfilling the assignment.
- Yes.Sharing permission codes with other students is the same as forging signatures or falsifying information on official academic documents such as drop/add forms, petitions, letters of permission, or any other official University document and is a violation of the Academic Honesty Policy.
- No. This is called “duplicate submission.” Students are expected to produce original work for all of their classes. Turning in an essay written for a different class is dishonest not only because you are misrepresenting it as work done for this class, but also because you have received a grade and critical input from your former instructor, thus giving you an unfair advantage over your classmates. Many times, however, you can use a former assignment as the basis for a new one. Confer with your instructor, show her the paper and discuss how you might develop the work in a way that can satisfy class requirements. It is ultimately your instructor’s decision whether it is appropriate to use work done in a different class for her course.
- Yes. In classes where collaboration on graded assignments is allowed, you must still do your own work. Always make sure you understand the extent of collaboration your instructor allows. If you are not sure, ask your instructor for clarification. Most instructors do not allow students to turn in identical work or assignments that contain identical work.
- No. No faculty member can punish you for alleged dishonesty without following the procedures outlined in the Academic Honesty Policy. The instructor can follow the Instructor Resolution with Penalty process by presenting you with the evidence of dishonesty, suggesting a penalty, referring you to the Academic Honesty Policy, and allowing you up to 48 hours to accept the penalty. Or he can turn the case over to the board for a hearing in a Board Resolution. He cannot punish you on his own. In a similar vein, no faculty member can “give you a break” and overlook an instance of academic dishonesty, as all University faculty and staff are obligated to report cases of suspected dishonesty to the board.
- No. This is called “facilitating academic dishonesty” and includes aiding another person in an act that violates the standards of academic honesty; allowing other students to look at one's own work during an exam or in an assignment where collaboration is not allowed; providing information, material, or assistance to another person in violation of course, departmental, or College academic honesty policies; and providing false information in connection with any academic honesty inquiry.
- No. Using automatic translation programs is the same as getting a friend to do your work for you and is dishonest.
Step 1: Prewriting and Choosing a Topic
Prewriting can help you take a general topic and make it more specific.
Learning Objectives
Explain the different types of prewriting exercises
Key Takeaways
Key Points
- During prewriting exercises, it is important to record everything that comes to mind without editing as you write. You can use the various techniques to generate a number of different ideas to choose from to formulate your topic.
- Brainstorming can help you find where your true interests lie and what part of a topic you might want to delve into further.
- Freewriting can help you generate new ideas about a topic by writing nonstop, without editing, for a set amount of time.
- Clustering, or concept mapping, can help you refine your thoughts and narrow the scope of a topic by making a map or diagram of different ideas you associate with a central topic.
Key Terms
- clustering: A prewriting technique consisting of writing a central idea in a circle on a sheet of paper, adding related ideas around the circle, and connecting them with lines to show how they related to each other.
- Outlining: A prewriting activity that allows you to organize to your ideas by placing them into an ordered sequence of primary and secondary ideas, which shows the relationship of the parts to the whole.
- concept map: A diagram that shows the relationships between concepts. Concepts are written in circles or rectangular boxes, which are connected by arrows that are labeled with phrases such as “is a,” “gives rise to,” “results in,” “is required by,” or “contributes to” that denote the relationships between concepts.
- freewriting: A prewriting technique in which the writer writes continuously for a set period of time without regard to spelling, grammar, or topic.
- brainstorming: A prewriting technique intended to generate creative ideas quickly and without editing, through word or idea association.
Writing often feels demanding and difficult because you are doing two seemingly contradictory things at the same time: creating and containing. You want your ideas to flow like a river, swift and strong, but if you pour out your ideas indiscriminately, the river will overflow its banks. You have to be judicious about the amount of information you include and selective with your word choices. Both freedom and structure are necessary to contain and direct the flow.
When you have no idea what to write about, prewriting can help get ideas flowing. Prewriting refers to what you do before you begin writing, whether that’s brainstorming, making a concept map, or making an outline. By prewriting, you can give organization and logical coherence to your ideas. You might be tempted to save time by skipping the prewriting stage, but, ultimately, putting a little extra work in at the beginning can save you time—and stress—especially when you’re writing a paper close to your deadline. The tools used in the prewriting stage can be used at any point in the writing process to help you clarify your ideas, to help you decide what direction to take, and to nurture creativity when you’re feeling stuck.
Brainstorming, freewriting, and clustering are three forms of prewriting that help spark ideas and can move you closer to the heart of what you think and feel about a topic. And, yes, even in an expository composition, heart matters! You’re much more likely to write an interesting paper if you care about the topic. Let’s explore how these three primary methods work.
Brainstorming
You might have heard the phrase, “There are no bad ideas in brainstorming.” This is another way of saying that it can be helpful to gather all of your ideas about a topic (even the bad ones) just to get started. This process is called brainstorming. You do this with another person or in a group, and each person contributes thoughts about the subject in a rapid-fire way. Afterwards, you can pick the best ideas and compile a list. Often, in the process of brainstorming, you will discover that many of your ideas are already connected to one another. Having these connected ideas already laid out will help you to form an outline more easily.
Notebooks: Freewriting can be a great way to get ideas moving.
Freewriting
Freewriting can come in handy if you have a general topic but are not sure what you want to say about it. The purpose of freewriting is to help you develop ideas spontaneously and naturally. Set yourself a time limit, and then start writing about your topic, recording thoughts in full sentences as they come into your mind. Do not edit as you go or even look back at what you have written, and try to avoid any distractions. Just keep writing as thoughts occur to you.
Clustering
The goal of clustering, or concept mapping, is to generate lots of ideas about a very broad topic, much like freewriting. You begin by writing down a key word in the middle of a blank page. You continue without pausing to jot down the words you associate with the key word, circling them, and drawing a line to connect them with the key word. As each word triggers new ideas, you write those down, circle them, and connect them with the word that inspired them, radiating out to create a concept map. You can then choose the ideas you think are best suited for your assignment and use the organization of the concept map to guide your writing.
Outlining
After collecting your ideas, but before turning them into an essay, many people find it helpful to produce an outline. Outlining shows how particular ideas fit—or don’t fit—into a cohesive whole. You designate your primary ideas and group subordinate or supporting ideas underneath them. This is the first stage in structuring the essay itself.
Writing a Good Research Title: Things to Avoid
Research titles
Reading time
3 minutespublished on
Views 90,934
When writing manuscripts, too many scholars neglect the research title. This phrase, along with the abstract, is what people will mostly see and read online. Title research of publications shows that the research paper title does matter a lot. Both bibliometrics and altmetrics tracking of citations are now, for better or worse, used to gauge a paper’s “success” for its author(s) and the journal publishing it. Interesting research topics coupled with good or clever yetaccurate research titlescan draw more attention to your work from peers and the public alike.
It would be helpful to have a list of what should never go into the title of a journal article. With this “don’ts” list, authors could have a handy tool to maximize the impact of their research. Titles for research manuscripts need not be complex. It can even have style. They can state the main result or idea of the paper (i.e., declarative). Alternatively, they can indicate the subject covered by the paper (i.e., descriptive). A third form, which should be used sparingly, conveys the research in the form of an open question.