The following information is used for educational purposes only.
How to give a good research talk
Simon L Peyton Jones, John Hughes, and John Launchbury
Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, G12 8QQ Scotland
Email: simonpj@microsoft.com,jl@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk, rjmh@cs.chalmers.se
1.What this paper is about
2.What to Say
◦ Using Examples
◦ Pruning: What to say without saying too much
◦ Telling it how it is
3.Visual Aids
◦Technology
◦What to put on a slide
◦Preparing slides
4.Giving the talk
◦Nerves
◦Presenting your slides
◦Timing
5.Conclusion
Abstract
Giving a good research talk is not easy. We try to identify some things which we have found helpful, in the hope that they may be useful to you.
This paper appears in SIGPLAN Notices 28(11) (Nov 1993).
1 What this paper is about
By a "research talk" we mean a presentation of 30-60 minutes, given to a group of people who are motivated and intelligent, but who may not know much about your particular area.
The paper is heavily on our personal experience of giving talks in the area of Computing Science. What we have to say is quite different from what business people are often taught, but perhaps that's due mainly to a difference in the style of presentation needed for technical material.
Papers like this one often tend to consist mainly of "motherhood" statements, with which nobody could possibly disagree (such as "prepare well"), and thereby end up with little real punch. We have tried to avoid this, partly by deliberately overstating some things (the title, for example) in order to make our points more vividly.
We make no claim to have all the answers; rather, we have simply tried to write down suggestions which have worked for us in the hope that they may be useful to you. Everyone is different, so take what is useful for you, and ignore the rest.
2 What to say
You should usually see your talk primarily as a ``taster'' for your work, rather than as an in-depth treatment. So two very useful questions to ask are these:
•Who is my primary audience?
•If someone remembers only one thing from my talk, what would I like it to be?.
If you have the answer to these questions pinned down, you can use them as criteria when deciding what to say and what to omit. And don't forget to tell the audience the answer to the second question!
2.1 Using examples
Most of us do research by trying to solve a bunch of related problems, finding some suitable framework in which to solve them, and then generalising and abstracting our solution. For example, if the problem is to find out whether a function evaluates its argument, then a suitable framework might be denotational semantics, and a generalisation might be abstract interpretation.
The Awful Trap is to present only the framework and the abstraction, leaving out the motivating examples which you used to guide your work. Many talks are far too abstract. They present slide upon slide of impressive-looking squiggles, but leave the audience none the wiser.
It is utterly vital to present examples which demonstrate the points you are trying to make. When you give a definition of a property, or a mathematical structure, or some new notation, give examples to show what the definition captures. When you give a theorem, give examples to show what it means in practice.
Of course in a written paper you must be careful to fill in the details, and state precisely what is going on (though a good paper has plenty of motivating examples too). With any luck, your talk will persuade your listeners to read your paper, but a talk is the wrong medium in which to demonstrate your mathematical virtuosity.
The need to motivate and illustrate your talk with examples is probably the most important single point in this paper, because so many talks fail to do so. Ask yourself again and again: "Have I illustrated this idea/theorem/definition/technique/algorithm with an example?".
2.2 Pruning: saying enough without saying too much
The tension is this: you need to say enough to convey the essential content of your idea, but you must not overwhelm your audience with too much material.
The best way out of this dilemma is to adopt a non-uniform approach to your talk; that is, treat some aspects in more detail than others. It may be painful not to talk about the other parts, but it is better than only giving a superficial treatment to everything, or over-running your time.
Given that there are bound to be people in your audience who don't know the area at all, some overall introduction/motivation is usually essential. But do avoid the temptation of spending five or ten minutes on rambling introductory remarks. Sometimes, for example, people start with a slide listing prior work on the subject of the talk, or with an abstract description of what the talk is about.
Don't waste time on this --- instead jump straight in with an example which demonstrates the problem you are addressing. Remember: if you bore your audience in the first few minutes you may never get them back.
2.3 Telling it how it is
Avoid the temptation to conceal problems you know about in your work. Not only is it dishonest: it is also ineffective. A bright audience will find you out.
Furthermore, if you are open about the difficulties, you may find that someone makes a suggestion which turns out to be just what you need. Get your audience to help you do your research!
3 Visual aids
Use an overhead projector. A research talk is just too short to be able to give a sensible development on the blackboard, and 35mm slides take far too much preparation. (There are exceptions, of course. For example, in graphics talks, 35mm slides are often necessary, and sometimes even video. In this case, minimise technology intrusion by minimising changes between overheads, slides and video.)
3.1 Technology
Write your overhead slides by hand, rather than use LaTeX or other machine-based typesetting technology, unless your handwriting is utterly abysmal, because:
•It frees you from having to prepare the entire talk before leaving for your trip.Handwritten slides in the middle of a typeset sequence look all wrong.
•It makes it easy to use colour.
•It makes it vastly easier to draw diagrams, add little arrows and bubbles, and so on. Of course this can be done by computer, but it is much, much slower.
•It is all too easy to be seduced by the apparent neatness of typesetting. Remember that time you spend fiddling with the typesetting is time you are not spending on the content.
•Typesetting adds to the temptation to write a slide that contains too much information, because it will still "fit". If you do typeset your slides, use a large font (at least 17pt). Thismakes your slides physically more legible, and usefully limits how much will fit.
Naturally, there are times when it is better to use the odd slide or two of typeset material --- computer output for example.
Use permanent-ink overhead projector pens. This is very important. The water-soluble kind rapidly get tatty and smudged (if your hands don't sweat when you are speaking your physiology is different to ours), and their colours are much less vivid. You can get plastic erasers for such pens, so you can still correct mistakes.
Throw away the flimsy tissue-paper backing which come with OHP slides. Instead use ordinary paper from your recycling box. They get in much less of a mess, and you can write notes on the backing sheet to remind you of points you want to make which don't appear on the slide itself.
Consider writing your slides "sideways" (landscape-style). This allows you to write larger, increasing legibility, and usefully limits how many things you can write.
Overlays (combined with use of colour) can be very helpful when presenting complicated examples, because they reduce the amount of new material to read on each successive slide. However, much of the advantage is lost if you pick up the slides to align them properly: the audience can't keep their eye on the old stuff to see what's new.
3.2 What to put on a slide
When writing slides remember that people can read and take in only very little information. Six or seven "things" on one slide is quite enough.
Slides shouldn't repeat what you plan to say, but they should emphasise it; don't waste visual bandwidth on things you are also going to say. People who copy their paper onto slides and then read from them are immensely irritating. You should plan to talk ABOUT what's on your slides, not read it. (This may mean you need separate notes to remind you of what you want to say.)
It is conventional to start with a contents slide, giving the outline of your talk. Don't. It takes a precious minute to talk through it, and your audience won't understand it till later. Certainly never include such trivia as "introduction", "conclusion". These are understood as a necessary part of every talk.
On the other hand, about a third of the way through, it can be quite helpful to draw breath with a slide which says ``This is what I have discussed so far, and now I'm going on to cover these areas'', or some such. This can help to re-orient your audience, and make it clear that this is the moment to ask questions if they are lost already. Another way to add signposts is to begin each section of your talk with a slide containing only the title of the section.
3.3 Preparing slides
Don't start writing slides too early. It is Parkinsonian process: it simply expands to fill the time available. So don't make too much time available. As indicated earlier, we often mull over what we are going to say for a week or two beforehand, but only actually write the slides the night before. This has the merit that the material is absolutely fresh in your mind when you give the talk, though you do need to have a clear idea in advance of what you are going to say.
Regard with extreme prejudice the temptation to pull out old slides from previous talks, and glue them together into a new talk. It almost always shows. Somehow the old slides are never quite appropriate. (It's fine to simply repeat a complete previous talk, of course.)
4 Giving the talk
4.1 Nerves
If you don't feel nervous before giving a talk, especially to a large or unfamiliar audience, you are a most unusual person. Between us we have given hundreds of talks, but the feeling that your legs just won't support you when you stand up in front of all those people never goes away. Do try steady, deep breathing beforehand, and relaxation exercises, but don't expect to feel calm.
Remember: the person who just gave that confident, assured presentationbefore you almost certainly felt just the same.
If you can make eye contact with your audience, then do so. A talk is greatly improved if the audience recognise they are being talked to rather than being talked at.
4.2 Presenting your slides
Some people hide most of their slide under a piece of paper, revealing it line by line, as they go through it. Occasionally this is just the right thing to do, but people quite often do it all the time, which we find a very irritating habit. Perhaps it helps to focus you listener's attention on the part you are talking about, but it is als rather condescending (``you can't be trusted to listen to me if I show you the next line too''). If you find yourself wanting to use this technique, ask yourself whether the material would not be better split over two slides.
There are exceptions: when you have a punchline to reveal, for example, or when you need to emphasise that something proceeds stage by stage; but it is a technique to use very sparingly. The inexperienced speaker especially doesn't need the extra hassle of messing about with a bit of paper.
An overriding goal must be to make the slides themselves as invisible as possible. It is the content that is important. This leads to a couple of other don'ts: don't use slides with a rip-off backing sheet; don't use a ring binder to hold your slides during the talk, especially if you open and close it between each pair of slides; don't switch off the overhead projector between slides. Each of these emphasises the existence of the slides as entities in their own right.
The only reason you use an overhead projector is so that people can see your slides. So don't block their view. For this reason it is often better to point at the screen than at the slide. In a big lecture room a pointer can help with this, but try not to bang the screen with it -- it makes everyone else's eyes go funny.
4.3 Timing
Don't over-run. It is selfish and rude. Either you will be cut off by the chairperson before you have reached your punchline, or you will compress others' talks, or you will make everyone late. In any case, you audience's attention span is limited, so you probably won't manage to convey much in your over-time period.
As you get more experienced, you will learn how long a single slide lasts in your talks. The average for most people is probably 2 to 3 minutes. Plan a couple of places where you can leave out a bunch of slides, and check your watch when you get to them.
It's a good idea to have a couple of slides at the end of your talk which you can use in the unlikely event that you finish early, but which you usuallyexpect not to use.
5 Conclusion
So there you have it. As we said in the introduction, our suggestions are simply ideas that we have found work for us; we hope they may work for you also.
Without a doubt it is worth putting thought and effort into presentationskills. Your work, no matter how brilliant, becomes valuable to others only in so far as you communicate it to them.
In this blog, teachers, students and all those who have some kind of interest in the English language will find useful, interesting, curious and funny things to be used in their classes or for their personal enjoyment.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
How Not To Give a Scientific Talk
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
How Not To Give a Scientific Talk
The importance of communicating well is often underplayed in science in general and in astronomy in particular. Yet the need to communicate clearly and concisely in science is at least as acute as in the humanities and social sciences.
We have all experienced scientific talks that have been both stimulating and memorable. Unfortunately, most talks - talks at all levels – are by no means in this category!
What are the secrets of giving a good oral presentation, of giving a memorable talk? The answer to this question is beyond the scope of this article. To be truthful, I don't know the answer. But having attended hundreds of oral presentations over the past twenty years, I think I have some appreciation of the characteristics that lead to a poor scientific oral presentation, characteristics that I share below. The following provides an enumeration of how not to give a scientific talk. These are largely based on an excellent article by J.C. Garland (Physics Today, 44, p. 42) and are supplemented by my own observations that reflect my particular biases.
Violate the three cardinal rules
To violate any of the three cardinal rules of giving a good scientific talk is to court disaster and to risk being consigned to immediate oblivion by your audience! But if ignominy is your goal, then I recommend that you:
1. Exceed the allotted time
2. Never practise beforehand
3. Never be prepared for a total failure of modern technology
Just as successful or memorable oral scientific presentations are practised beforehand, disastrous talks are almost never practised prior to their delivery. This is surely the strongest correlation of all. The reason that the quality of oral presentations (inevitably in English) at international meetings is higher by Europeans than by North Americans in my view is evidence that practising one's talk is the surest way of enhancing its quality and ensuring its successful reception.
If a talk has never been practised, the odds of exceeding one's allotted time increase dramatically, and nothing annoys an audience more than a speaker who goes overtime. This is the one "capital crime" of scientific presentations. Neophytes to the subject and experts alike ignore almost everything presented during "overtime," and the longer one proceeds, the more ill will one generates.
The third point may not be as common as the first two, but there are rare occasions when speakers are only prepared to deliver a talk in one format; e.g., PowerPoint, and are totally incapacitated when there is a failure of modern technology, e.g., the projector isn't delivered on time, or your laptop isn't quite compatible with the projector, or...
Put another way, if you forget that an oral presentation is really a reflection of you, then you are almost certainly doomed to give an inferior talk.
While the above may constitute "mortal sins" in the arena of scientific oral presentations, there are many more "venial sins" that are committed by presenters, flaws that detract from the overall quality of the presentation. I've loosely arranged these "sins" into a few categories. The order in each category is unimportant.
Deportment
1. Wear clothing that distracts from your science
2. Wear clothing that doesn't permit easily attaching a portable microphone
Neither women nor men should wear anything that could distract audience members from your principal goal of effectively communicating your science. This includes wearing revealing clothing, or dressing too formally or too informally for the situation. Women and men should also take care to wear clothing to which a portable microphone can be easily attached. At large meetings, the chair of the session sometimes (helpfully) tries to attach the microphone to the speaker's clothing. If you are uncomfortable with this protocol for any reason, simply make it apparent that you will attach the microphone yourself when it comes your turn.
Mannerisms
1. Continuously wander around the room
2. Jingle change in your pocket
3. Overdo the use of hand gestures
4. Act nervous and confused; ramble incoherently
5. Avoid making eye contact with the audience
6. Overdo the use of humour
7. Face the screen, often blocking the view of the projector
8. Speak in a muffled fashion with an irregular cadence
9. Raise the pitch of your voice at the end of sentences
10. Place a clip-on microphone on the wrong side of your shirt/top
11. Continuously wave your laser pointer on the screen making the audience nauseous
Few things are more annoying than when speakers display nervous mannerisms that distract some audience members from concentrating on the science at hand. For example, it is imprudent to wander randomly about the speaking area, of using exaggerated gestures, of using jokes or humour unsuccessfully, of failing to make eye contact with (at least certain members of) the audience, of speaking incoherently, of reading from the screen and turning your back on the audience for extended periods, etc.
While it is not inappropriate in the context of a scientific oral presentation to prepare some notes from which to speak, it is inappropriate to read the talk verbatim, either from the notes or the screen. And please ensure that the microphone is clipped on the side of your shirt/top that will be closest to the screen so that your voice doesn't fade out when drawing attention to something on the screen. Take care not to present in too bold a fashion - science doesn't admit absolute certainty - or too tentative a manner. With regard to the latter point, I've noticed that some inexperienced speakers sometimes raise the pitch of their voices at the end of some sentences thereby unintentionally reducing their effectiveness with the audience.
Level of Talk
1. Make the talk either too technical or too simple
2. Use equations profusely and gratuitously
It is essential that one accurately gauge the nature and level of the audience beforehand and tailor one's presentation appropriately. For an audience with mixed familiarity with your subject, one might devote most of the talk to an introduction to your subject and of a careful articulation of your incremental contribution(s). Use the last 10-20 percent of the time to speak to the experts in the audience, but ensure that the conclusion or summary is delivered at the introductory level. In this way, your presentation may indeed be memorable! It goes without saying that gratuitous displays of math or highly technical information are normally off-putting and should be avoided.
Written Material
1. Don't include a clear and concise summary slide of results
2. Don't leave the audience with a clear understanding of your most memorable finding
3. Ensure transparencies are illegible, densely packed, monochromatic, or a rainbow of colours
4. Use too many irrelevant animations in PowerPoint presentations, or colour schemes that render text illegible
5. Use modern technology to add "sizzle" rather than "steak"
6. On average, use more than one transparency or slide every two minutes
7. Adopt the "strip-tease" approach to showing transparencies
For very short contributed presentations (10-15 minutes), it is often most effective if one shows a clear and concise summary of your results both at the outset and conclusion of your talk. Use the remaining time to essentially fill in the details. Even for longer talks (30-60 minutes), it is a good idea to leave the audience with a clear impression of what you have accomplished. Nothing is more satisfying than to have explained a difficult concept to the audience in a way that they will recall for some time.
There are obvious pitfalls for speakers who employ high tech means of delivering an oral presentation. Just because technology routinely permits the introduction of animations, multi-coloured text, etc., that doesn't mean you should automatically employ these techniques unless they illustrate in a clearer way an important concept. In other words, unless you can add "steak" to the presentation by adopting high-tech methods, avoid them. Don't settle for just "sizzle."
In science, clarity and depth of understanding are paramount. The slide or overhead acts as a mere vehicle for the speaker to convey a profound point, or a new or different way of looking at a problem. It may therefore be counterproductive to show too much information or to show it in a halting way. Common sense should prevail, but "less" is better than "more" in oral presentations.
Answering Questions
1. Always argue with a questioner; provoke a fight
2. Always interrupt a questioner before he/she has finished asking the question
3. Drag your answer out for as long as possible to show off
4. Fake it if you don't know the answer
5. Don't give credit to anyone else's work and don't admit the questioner may be raising an important issue
The answer period constitutes an important component of a scientific oral presentation. Science works ultimately by challenging prevailing ideas, even your ideas! Coming at the end of a presentation, the question period will unavoidably colour how most audience members remember you and your science. It is therefore important that you adhere to a code of common sense and basic civility. By all means, enthusiastically recapitulate, expound and defend your science, but at the same time, be courteous, brief, admit unfamiliarity or ignorance of some point(s), and offer to discuss more esoteric or deeper issues "offline."
In summary, I have tried to enumerate various pitfalls that scientific speakers encounter when giving an oral presentation. I think it is important that effective communication skills form an integral part of undergraduate and graduate training. In lieu of a formal course in these techniques, perhaps lists such as this one, in conjunction with frequent opportunities to practice (e.g., journal clubs, senior seminars, etc.), could be used. This list is by no means complete and I welcome additions/comments from colleagues (mmdr@yorku.ca).
Michael De Robertis is Professor of Astronomy at York University.
© Copyright for this article belongs to Michael De Robertis
Source of the article: http://www.casca.ca/ecass/issues/2002-js/features/dirobertis/talk.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
How Not To Give a Scientific Talk
The importance of communicating well is often underplayed in science in general and in astronomy in particular. Yet the need to communicate clearly and concisely in science is at least as acute as in the humanities and social sciences.
We have all experienced scientific talks that have been both stimulating and memorable. Unfortunately, most talks - talks at all levels – are by no means in this category!
What are the secrets of giving a good oral presentation, of giving a memorable talk? The answer to this question is beyond the scope of this article. To be truthful, I don't know the answer. But having attended hundreds of oral presentations over the past twenty years, I think I have some appreciation of the characteristics that lead to a poor scientific oral presentation, characteristics that I share below. The following provides an enumeration of how not to give a scientific talk. These are largely based on an excellent article by J.C. Garland (Physics Today, 44, p. 42) and are supplemented by my own observations that reflect my particular biases.
Violate the three cardinal rules
To violate any of the three cardinal rules of giving a good scientific talk is to court disaster and to risk being consigned to immediate oblivion by your audience! But if ignominy is your goal, then I recommend that you:
1. Exceed the allotted time
2. Never practise beforehand
3. Never be prepared for a total failure of modern technology
Just as successful or memorable oral scientific presentations are practised beforehand, disastrous talks are almost never practised prior to their delivery. This is surely the strongest correlation of all. The reason that the quality of oral presentations (inevitably in English) at international meetings is higher by Europeans than by North Americans in my view is evidence that practising one's talk is the surest way of enhancing its quality and ensuring its successful reception.
If a talk has never been practised, the odds of exceeding one's allotted time increase dramatically, and nothing annoys an audience more than a speaker who goes overtime. This is the one "capital crime" of scientific presentations. Neophytes to the subject and experts alike ignore almost everything presented during "overtime," and the longer one proceeds, the more ill will one generates.
The third point may not be as common as the first two, but there are rare occasions when speakers are only prepared to deliver a talk in one format; e.g., PowerPoint, and are totally incapacitated when there is a failure of modern technology, e.g., the projector isn't delivered on time, or your laptop isn't quite compatible with the projector, or...
Put another way, if you forget that an oral presentation is really a reflection of you, then you are almost certainly doomed to give an inferior talk.
While the above may constitute "mortal sins" in the arena of scientific oral presentations, there are many more "venial sins" that are committed by presenters, flaws that detract from the overall quality of the presentation. I've loosely arranged these "sins" into a few categories. The order in each category is unimportant.
Deportment
1. Wear clothing that distracts from your science
2. Wear clothing that doesn't permit easily attaching a portable microphone
Neither women nor men should wear anything that could distract audience members from your principal goal of effectively communicating your science. This includes wearing revealing clothing, or dressing too formally or too informally for the situation. Women and men should also take care to wear clothing to which a portable microphone can be easily attached. At large meetings, the chair of the session sometimes (helpfully) tries to attach the microphone to the speaker's clothing. If you are uncomfortable with this protocol for any reason, simply make it apparent that you will attach the microphone yourself when it comes your turn.
Mannerisms
1. Continuously wander around the room
2. Jingle change in your pocket
3. Overdo the use of hand gestures
4. Act nervous and confused; ramble incoherently
5. Avoid making eye contact with the audience
6. Overdo the use of humour
7. Face the screen, often blocking the view of the projector
8. Speak in a muffled fashion with an irregular cadence
9. Raise the pitch of your voice at the end of sentences
10. Place a clip-on microphone on the wrong side of your shirt/top
11. Continuously wave your laser pointer on the screen making the audience nauseous
Few things are more annoying than when speakers display nervous mannerisms that distract some audience members from concentrating on the science at hand. For example, it is imprudent to wander randomly about the speaking area, of using exaggerated gestures, of using jokes or humour unsuccessfully, of failing to make eye contact with (at least certain members of) the audience, of speaking incoherently, of reading from the screen and turning your back on the audience for extended periods, etc.
While it is not inappropriate in the context of a scientific oral presentation to prepare some notes from which to speak, it is inappropriate to read the talk verbatim, either from the notes or the screen. And please ensure that the microphone is clipped on the side of your shirt/top that will be closest to the screen so that your voice doesn't fade out when drawing attention to something on the screen. Take care not to present in too bold a fashion - science doesn't admit absolute certainty - or too tentative a manner. With regard to the latter point, I've noticed that some inexperienced speakers sometimes raise the pitch of their voices at the end of some sentences thereby unintentionally reducing their effectiveness with the audience.
Level of Talk
1. Make the talk either too technical or too simple
2. Use equations profusely and gratuitously
It is essential that one accurately gauge the nature and level of the audience beforehand and tailor one's presentation appropriately. For an audience with mixed familiarity with your subject, one might devote most of the talk to an introduction to your subject and of a careful articulation of your incremental contribution(s). Use the last 10-20 percent of the time to speak to the experts in the audience, but ensure that the conclusion or summary is delivered at the introductory level. In this way, your presentation may indeed be memorable! It goes without saying that gratuitous displays of math or highly technical information are normally off-putting and should be avoided.
Written Material
1. Don't include a clear and concise summary slide of results
2. Don't leave the audience with a clear understanding of your most memorable finding
3. Ensure transparencies are illegible, densely packed, monochromatic, or a rainbow of colours
4. Use too many irrelevant animations in PowerPoint presentations, or colour schemes that render text illegible
5. Use modern technology to add "sizzle" rather than "steak"
6. On average, use more than one transparency or slide every two minutes
7. Adopt the "strip-tease" approach to showing transparencies
For very short contributed presentations (10-15 minutes), it is often most effective if one shows a clear and concise summary of your results both at the outset and conclusion of your talk. Use the remaining time to essentially fill in the details. Even for longer talks (30-60 minutes), it is a good idea to leave the audience with a clear impression of what you have accomplished. Nothing is more satisfying than to have explained a difficult concept to the audience in a way that they will recall for some time.
There are obvious pitfalls for speakers who employ high tech means of delivering an oral presentation. Just because technology routinely permits the introduction of animations, multi-coloured text, etc., that doesn't mean you should automatically employ these techniques unless they illustrate in a clearer way an important concept. In other words, unless you can add "steak" to the presentation by adopting high-tech methods, avoid them. Don't settle for just "sizzle."
In science, clarity and depth of understanding are paramount. The slide or overhead acts as a mere vehicle for the speaker to convey a profound point, or a new or different way of looking at a problem. It may therefore be counterproductive to show too much information or to show it in a halting way. Common sense should prevail, but "less" is better than "more" in oral presentations.
Answering Questions
1. Always argue with a questioner; provoke a fight
2. Always interrupt a questioner before he/she has finished asking the question
3. Drag your answer out for as long as possible to show off
4. Fake it if you don't know the answer
5. Don't give credit to anyone else's work and don't admit the questioner may be raising an important issue
The answer period constitutes an important component of a scientific oral presentation. Science works ultimately by challenging prevailing ideas, even your ideas! Coming at the end of a presentation, the question period will unavoidably colour how most audience members remember you and your science. It is therefore important that you adhere to a code of common sense and basic civility. By all means, enthusiastically recapitulate, expound and defend your science, but at the same time, be courteous, brief, admit unfamiliarity or ignorance of some point(s), and offer to discuss more esoteric or deeper issues "offline."
In summary, I have tried to enumerate various pitfalls that scientific speakers encounter when giving an oral presentation. I think it is important that effective communication skills form an integral part of undergraduate and graduate training. In lieu of a formal course in these techniques, perhaps lists such as this one, in conjunction with frequent opportunities to practice (e.g., journal clubs, senior seminars, etc.), could be used. This list is by no means complete and I welcome additions/comments from colleagues (mmdr@yorku.ca).
Michael De Robertis is Professor of Astronomy at York University.
© Copyright for this article belongs to Michael De Robertis
Source of the article: http://www.casca.ca/ecass/issues/2002-js/features/dirobertis/talk.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Giving an Oral Presentation
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Giving an Oral Presentation
Preparing your oral presentation
First of all, think.......
• Think about what you want to achieve:
do you want to inform your audience, inspire them to think about your topic, or convince them of a particular point of view?
• Think about your audience:
what background knowledge do they have about your topic? Do they have any particular interests? How are you going to involve them in your presentation?
Then........
• Brainstorm your topic and write a rough outline.
• Research your topic. Don’t get carried away—remember you have a limited time for your presentation.
• Organise your material and write a draft—think about the length of time you have to talk.
• Summarise your draft into points to write on overheads and/or cards.
• Plan and prepare your visual aids.
• Rehearse your presentation and get its length right. Ask a friend to listen and time you.
Organising the content
Introduction (may be written last)
• Capture your listeners’ attention: Begin with a question, a funny story, a startling comment, or anything that will make them think.
• State your purpose; for example:
‘I’m going to talk about...’
‘This morning I want to explain…’
• Present an outline of your talk; for example:
‘I will concentrate on the following points: First of all…Then…
This will lead to… And finally…’
The Body
• Present your main points one by one in logical order.
• Pause at the end of each point (give people time to take notes, or time to think about what you are saying).
• Make it absolutely clear when you move to another point. For example:
‘The next point is that ...’
‘OK, now I am going to talk about ...’
‘Right. Now I'd like to explain ... ’
‘Of course, we must not forget that ...’
‘However, it's important to realise that...’
• Use clear examples to illustrate your points.
• Use visual aids to make your presentation more interesting.
The Conclusion
• It is very important to leave your audience with a clear summary of everything you have covered.
• It is also important not to let the talk just fizzle out. Make it obvious that you have reached the end of the presentation.
• Summarise the main points again, using phrases like:
‘To sum up...’
‘So, in conclusion...’
‘OK, to recap the main points…’
• Restate the purpose of your talk, and say that you have achieved your aim:
‘I think you can now see that...’
‘My intention was ..., and it should now be clear that ...’
• Thank the audience, and invite questions:
‘Thank you. Are there any questions?’
Delivering your presentation
Talk to your audience, don't read to them!
A presentation is not the same as an essay.
If you read out your presentation as if it were an essay, your audience will probably understand very little and will lose concentration quickly.
So use notes, cue cards or overheads as prompts, and speak to the audience. Include everyone by looking at them and maintaining eye-contact (but don't stare or glare at people).
Watch your language!
• Keep it simple. The aim is to communicate, not to show off your vocabulary.
• Emphasise the key points—and make sure people realise which are the key points. Repeat them using different phrasing.
• Check the pronunciation of difficult, unusual, or foreign words beforehand.
Use your voice to communicate clearly
• Speak loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear you.
This may feel uncomfortably loud at first, but if people can't hear you, they won't listen.
• Speak slowly and clearly.
Don’t rush! Speaking fast doesn’t make you seem smarter, it will only make it harder for other people to understand you.
• Key words are important. Speak them out slowly and loudly.
• Vary your voice quality. If you always use the same volume and pitch (for example, all loud, or all soft, or in a monotone) your audience will switch off.
• When you begin a new point, use a higher pitch and volume.
• Slow down for key points.
• Use pauses—don't be afraid of short periods of silence. (They give you a chance to gather your thoughts, and your audience a chance to think.)
Use your body to communicate, too!
• Stand straight and comfortably. Do not slouch or shuffle about.
• Hold your head up. Look around and make eye-contact with people in the audience. Do not just address the lecturer! Do not stare at a point on the carpet or the wall. If you don't include the audience, they won't listen to you.
• When you are talking to your friends, you naturally use your hands, your facial expression, and your body to add to your communication. Do it in your presentation as well. It will make things far more interesting for the audience.
• Don't turn your back on the audience!
Interact with the audience
• Be aware of how your audience is reacting.
Are they interested or bored? If they look confused, ask them why.
Stop if necessary and explain a point again.
• Check if the audience is still with you.
‘Does that make sense?’
‘Is that clear?’
• Be open to questions.
If someone raises a hand, or asks a question in the middle of your talk, answer it. If you can't answer it, turn the question back out to the audience and let someone else answer it!
Questions are good. They show that the audience is listening with interest. They should not be regarded as an attack on you, but as a collaborative search for deeper understanding.
• Be ready to get the discussion going after your presentation. Just in case nobody has anything to say, have some provocative questions or points for discussion ready to ask the group.
Using visual aids
It is very helpful to use visual aids in your presentation, as it helps people to understand. People learn visually as well as orally. Particularly if your accent is different from your audience's accent, it can be very helpful to let them see your keywords.
Overheads
Overheads are the easiest and most reliable form of visual aids. You can use them as a prompt for your talk, so that you may not need cards. [But don't read word-for-word from your overheads!]
Be careful to:
• Use bold typeface, and a minimum of size 16 font [Check that your overheads are readable by placing them beside you on the floor and looking down at them. Can you read them?]
• Use no more than seven or eight main points on an overhead [Overheads that have too many words on them are no use at all]
• Give your audience time to take notes from your overhead
• Make sure your audience can see the overhead screen [Where are you standing? Is it directly in front of the screen?]
• Using colour, pictures and graphs can make your overheads more interesting [But don't overcrowd your overheads with too much detail]
PowerPoint
• You can use PowerPoint software to produce very professional overheads, or to make a computer-based presentation. If you would like to learn more about it, you can follow the Smart Force guide to PowerPoint, or ask the Computer Helpdesk for more information.
• Remember that PowerPoint may look great, but if the technology goes wrong you may be very embarrassed. It's a good idea to print out a handout, or have some overheads as a backup just in case.
• Sometimes students are tempted to spend more time on producing PowerPoint graphics than on the actual talk. Remember—if your talk is poor, no amount of fancy graphics will save it!
Handouts
Handouts are a great idea. Think about whether you want to distribute them before or after your presentation. It is a good idea to include your references on a handout, so that people can follow up on them later. You could also include some follow-up questions for discussion.
Using the whiteboard (or blackboard)
If possible, put your information on the whiteboard/blackboard before the talk begins, otherwise you will have to turn your back on the audience and break your eye contact with them, which is never a good idea. Writing on a board is also time-consuming. Use alternative visual aids wherever possible.
If you really must use a whiteboard, come prepared with the right pens (use pens clearly marked 'Whiteboard Marker'— don't use anything else) and write in large neat writing, so that people can read it.
Checking out the facilities
Whenever possible, check the facilities of the room where you are going to deliver your talk. Does the overhead processor work? How does it turn on and off? Where is the plug for the computer? Is there a whiteboard, or is it a blackboard? If a blackboard, is chalk provided?
Dealing with nervousness
The first few times you make a presentation, you will be nervous. That's quite a good thing—a bit of adrenalin often helps you to perform well.
However, to make sure that your nervousness does not become a problem, here are some things to consider:
• Smile! Your audience will react warmly to you if you smile and at least look relaxed.
• Treat your audience like friends.
• Confess that you are nervous! Your audience will be very sympathetic—they know how you are feeling.
• Breathe deeply. It will calm you down and help to control the slight shaking that you might get in your hands and your voice.
• Be well-prepared. Practise giving your talk (you can ask one of the Academic Skills Program lecturers to listen to your presentation)
• Be organised. If you are well organised, your task will be easier. If your overheads are out of order, or your notes are disorganised, you may get flustered.
• Slow down! When people are nervous, they tend to get confused easily. So your mind may start to race, and you may feel panicky. Make use of pauses: force yourself to stop at the end of a sentence, take a breath, and think before you continue.
• Remember: The way you perform is the way your audience will feel. Giving an oral presentation is a performance—you have to be like an actor. If you act the part of someone enjoying themselves and feeling confident, you will not only communicate these positive feelings to the audience, you will feel much better, too.
• Accomplished public speakers feel nervous before and even during a talk. The skill comes in not communicating your nervousness, and in not letting it take over from the presentation. Over time, you will feel less nervous, and well able to control your nervousness.
© Copyright for this article belongs to The Academic Skills Program at the University of Canberra.
Source of the article: http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/learning/oralpres.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Giving an Oral Presentation
Preparing your oral presentation
First of all, think.......
• Think about what you want to achieve:
do you want to inform your audience, inspire them to think about your topic, or convince them of a particular point of view?
• Think about your audience:
what background knowledge do they have about your topic? Do they have any particular interests? How are you going to involve them in your presentation?
Then........
• Brainstorm your topic and write a rough outline.
• Research your topic. Don’t get carried away—remember you have a limited time for your presentation.
• Organise your material and write a draft—think about the length of time you have to talk.
• Summarise your draft into points to write on overheads and/or cards.
• Plan and prepare your visual aids.
• Rehearse your presentation and get its length right. Ask a friend to listen and time you.
Organising the content
Introduction (may be written last)
• Capture your listeners’ attention: Begin with a question, a funny story, a startling comment, or anything that will make them think.
• State your purpose; for example:
‘I’m going to talk about...’
‘This morning I want to explain…’
• Present an outline of your talk; for example:
‘I will concentrate on the following points: First of all…Then…
This will lead to… And finally…’
The Body
• Present your main points one by one in logical order.
• Pause at the end of each point (give people time to take notes, or time to think about what you are saying).
• Make it absolutely clear when you move to another point. For example:
‘The next point is that ...’
‘OK, now I am going to talk about ...’
‘Right. Now I'd like to explain ... ’
‘Of course, we must not forget that ...’
‘However, it's important to realise that...’
• Use clear examples to illustrate your points.
• Use visual aids to make your presentation more interesting.
The Conclusion
• It is very important to leave your audience with a clear summary of everything you have covered.
• It is also important not to let the talk just fizzle out. Make it obvious that you have reached the end of the presentation.
• Summarise the main points again, using phrases like:
‘To sum up...’
‘So, in conclusion...’
‘OK, to recap the main points…’
• Restate the purpose of your talk, and say that you have achieved your aim:
‘I think you can now see that...’
‘My intention was ..., and it should now be clear that ...’
• Thank the audience, and invite questions:
‘Thank you. Are there any questions?’
Delivering your presentation
Talk to your audience, don't read to them!
A presentation is not the same as an essay.
If you read out your presentation as if it were an essay, your audience will probably understand very little and will lose concentration quickly.
So use notes, cue cards or overheads as prompts, and speak to the audience. Include everyone by looking at them and maintaining eye-contact (but don't stare or glare at people).
Watch your language!
• Keep it simple. The aim is to communicate, not to show off your vocabulary.
• Emphasise the key points—and make sure people realise which are the key points. Repeat them using different phrasing.
• Check the pronunciation of difficult, unusual, or foreign words beforehand.
Use your voice to communicate clearly
• Speak loudly enough for everyone in the room to hear you.
This may feel uncomfortably loud at first, but if people can't hear you, they won't listen.
• Speak slowly and clearly.
Don’t rush! Speaking fast doesn’t make you seem smarter, it will only make it harder for other people to understand you.
• Key words are important. Speak them out slowly and loudly.
• Vary your voice quality. If you always use the same volume and pitch (for example, all loud, or all soft, or in a monotone) your audience will switch off.
• When you begin a new point, use a higher pitch and volume.
• Slow down for key points.
• Use pauses—don't be afraid of short periods of silence. (They give you a chance to gather your thoughts, and your audience a chance to think.)
Use your body to communicate, too!
• Stand straight and comfortably. Do not slouch or shuffle about.
• Hold your head up. Look around and make eye-contact with people in the audience. Do not just address the lecturer! Do not stare at a point on the carpet or the wall. If you don't include the audience, they won't listen to you.
• When you are talking to your friends, you naturally use your hands, your facial expression, and your body to add to your communication. Do it in your presentation as well. It will make things far more interesting for the audience.
• Don't turn your back on the audience!
Interact with the audience
• Be aware of how your audience is reacting.
Are they interested or bored? If they look confused, ask them why.
Stop if necessary and explain a point again.
• Check if the audience is still with you.
‘Does that make sense?’
‘Is that clear?’
• Be open to questions.
If someone raises a hand, or asks a question in the middle of your talk, answer it. If you can't answer it, turn the question back out to the audience and let someone else answer it!
Questions are good. They show that the audience is listening with interest. They should not be regarded as an attack on you, but as a collaborative search for deeper understanding.
• Be ready to get the discussion going after your presentation. Just in case nobody has anything to say, have some provocative questions or points for discussion ready to ask the group.
Using visual aids
It is very helpful to use visual aids in your presentation, as it helps people to understand. People learn visually as well as orally. Particularly if your accent is different from your audience's accent, it can be very helpful to let them see your keywords.
Overheads
Overheads are the easiest and most reliable form of visual aids. You can use them as a prompt for your talk, so that you may not need cards. [But don't read word-for-word from your overheads!]
Be careful to:
• Use bold typeface, and a minimum of size 16 font [Check that your overheads are readable by placing them beside you on the floor and looking down at them. Can you read them?]
• Use no more than seven or eight main points on an overhead [Overheads that have too many words on them are no use at all]
• Give your audience time to take notes from your overhead
• Make sure your audience can see the overhead screen [Where are you standing? Is it directly in front of the screen?]
• Using colour, pictures and graphs can make your overheads more interesting [But don't overcrowd your overheads with too much detail]
PowerPoint
• You can use PowerPoint software to produce very professional overheads, or to make a computer-based presentation. If you would like to learn more about it, you can follow the Smart Force guide to PowerPoint, or ask the Computer Helpdesk for more information.
• Remember that PowerPoint may look great, but if the technology goes wrong you may be very embarrassed. It's a good idea to print out a handout, or have some overheads as a backup just in case.
• Sometimes students are tempted to spend more time on producing PowerPoint graphics than on the actual talk. Remember—if your talk is poor, no amount of fancy graphics will save it!
Handouts
Handouts are a great idea. Think about whether you want to distribute them before or after your presentation. It is a good idea to include your references on a handout, so that people can follow up on them later. You could also include some follow-up questions for discussion.
Using the whiteboard (or blackboard)
If possible, put your information on the whiteboard/blackboard before the talk begins, otherwise you will have to turn your back on the audience and break your eye contact with them, which is never a good idea. Writing on a board is also time-consuming. Use alternative visual aids wherever possible.
If you really must use a whiteboard, come prepared with the right pens (use pens clearly marked 'Whiteboard Marker'— don't use anything else) and write in large neat writing, so that people can read it.
Checking out the facilities
Whenever possible, check the facilities of the room where you are going to deliver your talk. Does the overhead processor work? How does it turn on and off? Where is the plug for the computer? Is there a whiteboard, or is it a blackboard? If a blackboard, is chalk provided?
Dealing with nervousness
The first few times you make a presentation, you will be nervous. That's quite a good thing—a bit of adrenalin often helps you to perform well.
However, to make sure that your nervousness does not become a problem, here are some things to consider:
• Smile! Your audience will react warmly to you if you smile and at least look relaxed.
• Treat your audience like friends.
• Confess that you are nervous! Your audience will be very sympathetic—they know how you are feeling.
• Breathe deeply. It will calm you down and help to control the slight shaking that you might get in your hands and your voice.
• Be well-prepared. Practise giving your talk (you can ask one of the Academic Skills Program lecturers to listen to your presentation)
• Be organised. If you are well organised, your task will be easier. If your overheads are out of order, or your notes are disorganised, you may get flustered.
• Slow down! When people are nervous, they tend to get confused easily. So your mind may start to race, and you may feel panicky. Make use of pauses: force yourself to stop at the end of a sentence, take a breath, and think before you continue.
• Remember: The way you perform is the way your audience will feel. Giving an oral presentation is a performance—you have to be like an actor. If you act the part of someone enjoying themselves and feeling confident, you will not only communicate these positive feelings to the audience, you will feel much better, too.
• Accomplished public speakers feel nervous before and even during a talk. The skill comes in not communicating your nervousness, and in not letting it take over from the presentation. Over time, you will feel less nervous, and well able to control your nervousness.
© Copyright for this article belongs to The Academic Skills Program at the University of Canberra.
Source of the article: http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/learning/oralpres.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Geoff Pullum's Six Golden Rules of giving an academic presentation
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Geoff Pullum's Six Golden Rules of giving an academic presentation
DON'T EVER BEGIN WITH AN APOLOGY.
Everyone has seen speakers beginning a presentation by apologizing for how unworthy they are, how little of their work is really conclusive, how they hope people will forgive them and so on. No one has ever seen a case in which this improved the reception of the paper or the mood of the audience. If you're going to be bad, they won't be pleased that they showed up, and if you're not then you are just wasting air time. Pieter Seuren has pointed out to me that the tradition of beginning with an apology is so old that it has a name in Medieval rhetoric: it is called the captatio benevolentiae, the capturing of the audience's good will. My point is that an apology simply doesn't work as advertised. Opening up with an apology is like trying to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and annoys the pig. Don't ever do it.
DON'T EVER UNDERESTIMATE THE AUDIENCE'S INTELLIGENCE.
Few sins are worse than making the audience think you think they are stupid. An audience who sees a presentation somewhat too high-powered for them may still grasp some of it, and at the very least its members will feel that they have been flattered with the assumption that they are smart. But the members of an audience who hear a talk pitched too low for them have both wasted an hour and been treated as if they were dumb. It truly adds insult to injury. So while you should always worry that perhaps you are being confusing, you should worry somewhat less about whether what you are saying is difficult. There are many worse things than a difficult and demanding lecture, and a patronizing and superficial lecture is one of them.
RESPECT THE TIME LIMITS.
It is sad to be cut off when you are just about to make your major point. Or even a minor one. Plan your time, and don't let it happen. The mood of the audience is not going to improve from seeing someone ramble on when they should have been stopped by now so that questions can begin. A good chair will stop you dead at the agreed time, but don't wait for that: wrap up before the chairperson has to stand up (or the students who are late for their next class have to get up and leave).
DON'T SURVEY THE WHOLE DAMN FIELD.
You need to make a few assumptions clear before you get going on your main point, but you don't need to begin by summarizing the whole prior content of the discipline, explaining what grammars are, what phonemes are, etc etc. Even in a job talk, where giving your whole dissertation in 55 minutes is the awful temptation, don't do it. Assume a reasonable amount of background, and then present something that can be delivered in a reasonable amount of time. A good rule of thumb if using transparencies is that each one should be up there for three minutes, or at the very least two. Treating each display on a handout as the equivalent of one transparency gives you a rule of thumb for handouts, too.
REMEMBER THAT YOU'RE AN ADVOCATE, NOT THE DEFENDANT.
It's your idea that's being presented, not you. The reason for not feeling nervous is that you are not what's up for consideration (not even at a job talk; they consider you later!). This isn't about you (that's why you shouldn't begin with an apology: that's about how you feel). It's the ideas that are going to get scrutiny. If those ideas don't survive after today, too bad for them. You can't work miracles. But for today, you're there to do as fair a job as you can for them during their twenty minutes in the spotlight. You're a vehicle, an advocate, a public defender. These ideas might have been unfairly dismissed without a trial. No matter what the ultimate verdict, you will have served the court of scholarly opinion if you defend them effectively.
Finally, though this concerns not the talk but the questions afterward, during the question session EXPECT QUESTIONS THAT WILL FLOOR YOU. You should hope some of the questions to be hard ones. If the combined wits and backgrounds of the audience can't yield a question that really gives you some trouble, or can't come up with any questions at all, you should feel mildly annoyed; they really can't have been seriously thinking about what you said. It's a bit sad to give a presentation so perfect that there is no crevice for the critical knife, so that the question period is an embarassing two minutes of silence. It's as if the talk had died. And it is no great shame to be flummoxed. Listen closely, think, and if it's a great question you had never considered before and you don't know the answer, simply say, "That's a great question that I had never considered before. I don't know the answer."
© Copyright for this article belongs to Professor Geoffrey K. Pullum. Source of the article: http://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/goldenrules.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Geoff Pullum's Six Golden Rules of giving an academic presentation
DON'T EVER BEGIN WITH AN APOLOGY.
Everyone has seen speakers beginning a presentation by apologizing for how unworthy they are, how little of their work is really conclusive, how they hope people will forgive them and so on. No one has ever seen a case in which this improved the reception of the paper or the mood of the audience. If you're going to be bad, they won't be pleased that they showed up, and if you're not then you are just wasting air time. Pieter Seuren has pointed out to me that the tradition of beginning with an apology is so old that it has a name in Medieval rhetoric: it is called the captatio benevolentiae, the capturing of the audience's good will. My point is that an apology simply doesn't work as advertised. Opening up with an apology is like trying to teach a pig to sing: it wastes your time and annoys the pig. Don't ever do it.
DON'T EVER UNDERESTIMATE THE AUDIENCE'S INTELLIGENCE.
Few sins are worse than making the audience think you think they are stupid. An audience who sees a presentation somewhat too high-powered for them may still grasp some of it, and at the very least its members will feel that they have been flattered with the assumption that they are smart. But the members of an audience who hear a talk pitched too low for them have both wasted an hour and been treated as if they were dumb. It truly adds insult to injury. So while you should always worry that perhaps you are being confusing, you should worry somewhat less about whether what you are saying is difficult. There are many worse things than a difficult and demanding lecture, and a patronizing and superficial lecture is one of them.
RESPECT THE TIME LIMITS.
It is sad to be cut off when you are just about to make your major point. Or even a minor one. Plan your time, and don't let it happen. The mood of the audience is not going to improve from seeing someone ramble on when they should have been stopped by now so that questions can begin. A good chair will stop you dead at the agreed time, but don't wait for that: wrap up before the chairperson has to stand up (or the students who are late for their next class have to get up and leave).
DON'T SURVEY THE WHOLE DAMN FIELD.
You need to make a few assumptions clear before you get going on your main point, but you don't need to begin by summarizing the whole prior content of the discipline, explaining what grammars are, what phonemes are, etc etc. Even in a job talk, where giving your whole dissertation in 55 minutes is the awful temptation, don't do it. Assume a reasonable amount of background, and then present something that can be delivered in a reasonable amount of time. A good rule of thumb if using transparencies is that each one should be up there for three minutes, or at the very least two. Treating each display on a handout as the equivalent of one transparency gives you a rule of thumb for handouts, too.
REMEMBER THAT YOU'RE AN ADVOCATE, NOT THE DEFENDANT.
It's your idea that's being presented, not you. The reason for not feeling nervous is that you are not what's up for consideration (not even at a job talk; they consider you later!). This isn't about you (that's why you shouldn't begin with an apology: that's about how you feel). It's the ideas that are going to get scrutiny. If those ideas don't survive after today, too bad for them. You can't work miracles. But for today, you're there to do as fair a job as you can for them during their twenty minutes in the spotlight. You're a vehicle, an advocate, a public defender. These ideas might have been unfairly dismissed without a trial. No matter what the ultimate verdict, you will have served the court of scholarly opinion if you defend them effectively.
Finally, though this concerns not the talk but the questions afterward, during the question session EXPECT QUESTIONS THAT WILL FLOOR YOU. You should hope some of the questions to be hard ones. If the combined wits and backgrounds of the audience can't yield a question that really gives you some trouble, or can't come up with any questions at all, you should feel mildly annoyed; they really can't have been seriously thinking about what you said. It's a bit sad to give a presentation so perfect that there is no crevice for the critical knife, so that the question period is an embarassing two minutes of silence. It's as if the talk had died. And it is no great shame to be flummoxed. Listen closely, think, and if it's a great question you had never considered before and you don't know the answer, simply say, "That's a great question that I had never considered before. I don't know the answer."
© Copyright for this article belongs to Professor Geoffrey K. Pullum. Source of the article: http://people.ucsc.edu/~pullum/goldenrules.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Annotated Bibliographies
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Annotated Bibliographies
This handout will:
1. explain why annotated bibliographies are useful for researchers.
2. provide an explanation of what constitutes an annotation.
3. describe various types of annotations and styles for writing them.
4. offer multiple examples of annotated bibliographies in the MLA, APA, and CBE styles of citation.
Introduction
Welcome to the wonderful world of annotated bibliographies! You're probably already familiar with the need to provide bibliographies, reference pages, and works cited to credit your sources when you do a research paper. An annotated bibliography includes descriptions and explanations of your listed sources beyond the basic citation information you usually provide.
Annotated bibliographies are useful for researchers:
Why Do These Things, Anyway? You Can See What the Source Is From the Regular Bibliography.
One of the reasons behind citing sources and compiling a general bibliography is so that you can prove you have done some valid research to back up your argument and claims. Readers can refer to a citation in your bibliography and then go look up the material themselves. When inspired by your text or your argument, interested researchers can access your resources. They may wish to double check a claim or interpretation you've made, or they may simply wish to continue researching according to their interests. But think about it: even though a bibliography provides a list of research sources of all types that includes publishing information, how much does that really tell a researcher or reader about the sources themselves?
An annotated bibliography provides specific information about each source you have used. As a researcher, you have become an expert on your topic and have the ability both to explain the content and to assess the usefulness of your sources for those not in the know. Think of your paper as part of a conversation with others interested in the same things you are; the annotated bibliography allows you to tell readers what to check out, what might be worth checking out in some situations, and what might not be worth spending the time. It's kind of like providing a list of good movies for your classmates to watch and then going over the list with them, telling them why this movie would be better than that one or why one student in your class might like a particular movie better than another student. You want to give your audience enough information to understand basically what the movies are about and to make an informed decision about where to spend their money based on their interests.
Good Reasons That Annotated Bibiliographies Exist:
A good annotated bibliography
• encourages you to think critically about the content of the works you are using, their place within a field of study, and their relation to your own research and ideas.
• proves you have read and understand your sources.
• establishes your work as a valid source and you as a competent researcher.
• orients your study and topic in a continuing professional conversation.
• provides a way for others to decide whether the source will be helpful to their research if they read it.
• could help interested researchers determine whether they are interested in a topic by providing background information and an idea of the kind of work going on in a field.
What is an annotated bibliography?
What are the Basic Possible Elements of an Annotation?
1. Bibliography according to the appropriate citation style (MLA, APA, CBE).
2. Explanation of main points and/or purpose of the work, basically its thesis, which shows among other things that you have read and thoroughly understand the source.
3. Verification or critique of the authority or qualifications of the author.
4. Comments on the worth, effectiveness, and usefulness of the work in terms of both the topic being researched and/or your own research project.
5. The point of view or perspective from which the work was written. For instance, you may note if the author seemed to have particular biases or was trying to reach a particular audience.
6. Relevant links to other work done in the area, like related sources, possibly including a comparison with some of those already on your list. You may want to establish connections to other aspects of the same argument or opposing views.
The first four elements above are usually a necessary part of the annotated bibliography. Points 5 and 6 may involve a little more analysis of the source, but you may include them in other kinds of annotations besides evaluative ones. Depending on the type of annotation you use, which this handout will address in the next section, there may be additional kinds of information that you will need to include.
For more extensive research papers (probably ten pages or more), you often see resource materials grouped into sub headed sections based on content, but this probably will not be necessary for the kinds of assignments you'll be working on. For longer papers, ask your professor about her preferences concerning annotated bibliographies.
Did you know that annotations have categories and styles?
Decisions, Decisions:
As you go through this handout, you'll see that, before you start, you'll need to make several decisions about your annotations: citation format, type of annotation, and writing style for the annotation.
First of all, you'll need to decide which kind of citation format is appropriate to the paper and its sources, for instance, MLA or APA. This may influence the format of the annotations and bibliography. For your purposes, all bibliographies should be double-spaced and use normal margins (you may want to check with your instructor, since she may have a variation she wants you to follow).
MLA (Modern Language Association)
Check out our handout on MLA documentation for basic MLA bibliography formatting and rules.
• MLA documentation is generally used for disciplines in the humanities, such as English, languages, film, and cultural studies or other theoretical studies. These annotations are often summary or analytical annotations.
• Title your annotated bibliography "Annotated Bibliography" or "Annotated List of Works Cited."
• Following MLA format, use a hanging indent for your bibliographic information. This means the first line is not indented and all the other lines are indented four spaces (you may ask your instructor if it's okay to tab over instead of using four spaces).
• Begin your annotation immediately after the bibliographic information of the source ends; don't skip a line down unless you have been told to do so by your instructor.
APA (American Psychological Association)
Check out our handout on APA documentation basic APA bibliography formatting and rules.
• Natural and social sciences, such as psychology, nursing, sociology, and social work use APA documentation. It is also used in economics, business, and criminology. These annotations are often succinct summaries.
• Annotated bibliographies for APA format do not require a special title. Use the usual "References" designation.
• Like MLA, APA uses a hanging indent: the first line is set flush with the left margin, and all other lines are indented four spaces (you may ask your instructor if it's okay to tab over instead of using four spaces).
• After the bibliographic citation, drop down to the next line to begin the annotation, but don't skip an extra line.
• The entire annotation is indented an additional two spaces, so that means each of its lines will be six spaces from the margin (if your instructor has said that it's okay to tab over instead of using the four spaces rule, indent the annotation two more spaces in from that point).
CBE (Council of Biology Editors)
Check out our handout on CBE documentation for basic CBE bibliography formatting and rules.
• CBE documentation is used by the plant sciences, zoology, microbiology, and the medical sciences.
• Annotated bibliographies for CBE format do not require a special title. Use the usual "References," "Cited References," or "Literature Cited," and set it flush with the left margin.
• Bibliographies for CBE in general are in a slightly smaller font than the rest of the paper.
• When using the name-year system, like MLA and APA, the first line of each entry is set flush with the left margin, and all subsequent lines, including the annotation, are indented three or four spaces.
• When using the citation-sequence method, each entry begins two spaces after the number, and every line, including the annotation, will be indented to match the beginning of the entry, or may be slightly further indented, as in the case of journals.
• After the bibliographic citation, drop down to the next line to begin the annotation, but don't skip an extra line. The entire annotation follows the indentation of the bibliographic entry, whether it's N-Y or C-S format.
• Annotations in CBE are generally a smaller font size than the rest of the bibliographic information.
After choosing a documentation format, you'll choose from a variety of annotation categories presented in the following section. Each type of annotation highlights a particular approach to presenting a source to a reader. For instance, an annotation could provide a summary of the source only, or it could also provide some additional evaluation of that material.
In addition to making choices related to the content of the annotation, you'll also need to choose a style of writing-for instance, telescopic versus paragraph form. Your writing style isn't dictated by the content of your annotation. Writing style simply refers to the way you've chosen to convey written information. A discussion of writing style follows the section on annotation types.
Types of annotations:
As you now know, one annotation does not fit all! There are different kinds of annotations, depending on what might be most important for your reader to learn about a source. Your assignments will usually make it clear which citation format you need to use, but they may not always specify which type of annotation to employ. In that case, you'll either need to pick your instructor's brain a little to see what she wants or use clue words from the assignment itself to make a decision. For instance, the assignment may tell you that your annotative bibliography should give evidence proving an analytical understanding of the sources you've used. The word analytical clues you in to the idea that you must evaluate the sources you're working with and provide some kind of critique.
Summary Annotations:
There are two kinds of summarizing annotations, informative and indicative.
Summarizing annotations in general have a couple of defining features:
• They sum up the content of the source, as a book report might.
• They give an overview of the arguments and proofs/evidence addressed in the work and note the resulting conclusion.
• They do not judge the work they are discussing. Leave that to the critical/evaluative annotations.
• When appropriate, they describe the author's methodology or approach to material. For instance, you might mention if the source is an ethnography or if the author employs a particular kind of theory.
Informative annotation
Informative annotations sometimes read like straight summaries of the source material, but they often spend a little more time summarizing relevant information about the author or the work itself.
Indicative annotation:
Indicative annotation is the second type of summary annotation, but it does not attempt to include actual information from the argument itself. Instead, it gives general information about what kinds of questions or issues are addressed by the work. This sometimes includes the use of chapter titles.
Critical/Evaluative:
Evaluative annotations don't just summarize. In addition to tackling the points addressed in summary annotations, evaluative annotations:
• evaluate the source or author critically (biases, lack of evidence, objective, etc.).
• show how the work may or may not be useful for a particular field of study or audience.
• explain how researching this material assisted your own project.
Combination:
An annotated bibliography may combine elements of all the types. In fact, most of them fall into this category: a little summarizing and describing, a little evaluation.
Writing Style:
Ok, next! So what does it mean to use different writing styles as opposed to different kinds of content? Content is what belongs in the annotation, and style is the way you write it up. First, choose which content type you need to compose, and then choose the style you're going to use to write it:
Telescopic:
This kind of annotated bibliography is a study in succinctness. It uses a minimalist treatment of both information and sentence structure, without sacrificing clarity. Warning: this kind of writing can be harder than you might think.
Paragraph:
Don't skimp on this kind of annotated bibliography. If your instructor has asked for paragraph form, it likely means that you'll need to include several elements in the annotation, or that she expects a more in-depth description or evaluation, for instance. Make sure to provide an entire paragraph's worth treatment of the work.
Conclusion:
As you can see now, bibliographies and annotations are really a series of organized steps. They require meticulous attention, but in the end, you've got an entire testimony to all the research and work you've done. At the end of this handout you'll find examples of informative, indicative, evaluative, combination, telescopic, and paragraph annotated bibliography entries in MLA, APA, and CBE formats. Use these examples as your guide to creating an annotated bibliography that makes you look like the expert you are!
Bibliography
"Annotated Bibliography." The Writing Center. 2003. University of Wisconsin, Madison.
5 March 2004.
Bell, I. F. and J. Gallup. A Reference Guide to English, American, and Canadian
Literature. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1971. 68.
Bizzell, Patricia and Bruce Herzburg. Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing. 3rd
ed. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1991. 47.
Carlson, Laurie. "Annotated Bibliographies." 6 April 2004. KU Writing Center. University
of Kansas. 8 April 2004.
Center for Information on Language Teaching and The English Teaching Information
Center of the British Council. Language-teaching Bibliography. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1968. 146.
Engle, Michael, Amy Blumenthal, and Tony Cosgrave. "How to Prepare an
Annotated Bibliography." 20 November 2002. Reference Services Division, Olin and
Uris Libraries Cornell University Libraries. 8 April 2004
.
Gibaldi, Joseph, ed. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 5th ed. New York:
Modern Language Association of America, 1999.
Grasso, Michael A. "Research Agenda of Foundational Material." Speech Recognition
Annotated Bibliography. Speech Input in Multimodal Environments: Effects of
Perceptual Structure on Speed, Accuracy and Acceptance. 29 March 29, 2004
.
"How to Write Annotated Bibliographies." 22 April 2003. Queen Elizabeth II Library of
Memorial University of Newfoundland Libraries. 8 April 2004
.
American Psychological Association. Publication Manual of the American Psychological
Association. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001.
Spatt, Brenda. Writing from Sources. 3rd ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. 32.
Tate, Thomas. The Write Place. May 2000. St. Cloud State University, Minnesota. 8
April 2004.
© Copyright for this article belongs to The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Source of the article: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/annotated_bibliographies.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Annotated Bibliographies
This handout will:
1. explain why annotated bibliographies are useful for researchers.
2. provide an explanation of what constitutes an annotation.
3. describe various types of annotations and styles for writing them.
4. offer multiple examples of annotated bibliographies in the MLA, APA, and CBE styles of citation.
Introduction
Welcome to the wonderful world of annotated bibliographies! You're probably already familiar with the need to provide bibliographies, reference pages, and works cited to credit your sources when you do a research paper. An annotated bibliography includes descriptions and explanations of your listed sources beyond the basic citation information you usually provide.
Annotated bibliographies are useful for researchers:
Why Do These Things, Anyway? You Can See What the Source Is From the Regular Bibliography.
One of the reasons behind citing sources and compiling a general bibliography is so that you can prove you have done some valid research to back up your argument and claims. Readers can refer to a citation in your bibliography and then go look up the material themselves. When inspired by your text or your argument, interested researchers can access your resources. They may wish to double check a claim or interpretation you've made, or they may simply wish to continue researching according to their interests. But think about it: even though a bibliography provides a list of research sources of all types that includes publishing information, how much does that really tell a researcher or reader about the sources themselves?
An annotated bibliography provides specific information about each source you have used. As a researcher, you have become an expert on your topic and have the ability both to explain the content and to assess the usefulness of your sources for those not in the know. Think of your paper as part of a conversation with others interested in the same things you are; the annotated bibliography allows you to tell readers what to check out, what might be worth checking out in some situations, and what might not be worth spending the time. It's kind of like providing a list of good movies for your classmates to watch and then going over the list with them, telling them why this movie would be better than that one or why one student in your class might like a particular movie better than another student. You want to give your audience enough information to understand basically what the movies are about and to make an informed decision about where to spend their money based on their interests.
Good Reasons That Annotated Bibiliographies Exist:
A good annotated bibliography
• encourages you to think critically about the content of the works you are using, their place within a field of study, and their relation to your own research and ideas.
• proves you have read and understand your sources.
• establishes your work as a valid source and you as a competent researcher.
• orients your study and topic in a continuing professional conversation.
• provides a way for others to decide whether the source will be helpful to their research if they read it.
• could help interested researchers determine whether they are interested in a topic by providing background information and an idea of the kind of work going on in a field.
What is an annotated bibliography?
What are the Basic Possible Elements of an Annotation?
1. Bibliography according to the appropriate citation style (MLA, APA, CBE).
2. Explanation of main points and/or purpose of the work, basically its thesis, which shows among other things that you have read and thoroughly understand the source.
3. Verification or critique of the authority or qualifications of the author.
4. Comments on the worth, effectiveness, and usefulness of the work in terms of both the topic being researched and/or your own research project.
5. The point of view or perspective from which the work was written. For instance, you may note if the author seemed to have particular biases or was trying to reach a particular audience.
6. Relevant links to other work done in the area, like related sources, possibly including a comparison with some of those already on your list. You may want to establish connections to other aspects of the same argument or opposing views.
The first four elements above are usually a necessary part of the annotated bibliography. Points 5 and 6 may involve a little more analysis of the source, but you may include them in other kinds of annotations besides evaluative ones. Depending on the type of annotation you use, which this handout will address in the next section, there may be additional kinds of information that you will need to include.
For more extensive research papers (probably ten pages or more), you often see resource materials grouped into sub headed sections based on content, but this probably will not be necessary for the kinds of assignments you'll be working on. For longer papers, ask your professor about her preferences concerning annotated bibliographies.
Did you know that annotations have categories and styles?
Decisions, Decisions:
As you go through this handout, you'll see that, before you start, you'll need to make several decisions about your annotations: citation format, type of annotation, and writing style for the annotation.
First of all, you'll need to decide which kind of citation format is appropriate to the paper and its sources, for instance, MLA or APA. This may influence the format of the annotations and bibliography. For your purposes, all bibliographies should be double-spaced and use normal margins (you may want to check with your instructor, since she may have a variation she wants you to follow).
MLA (Modern Language Association)
Check out our handout on MLA documentation for basic MLA bibliography formatting and rules.
• MLA documentation is generally used for disciplines in the humanities, such as English, languages, film, and cultural studies or other theoretical studies. These annotations are often summary or analytical annotations.
• Title your annotated bibliography "Annotated Bibliography" or "Annotated List of Works Cited."
• Following MLA format, use a hanging indent for your bibliographic information. This means the first line is not indented and all the other lines are indented four spaces (you may ask your instructor if it's okay to tab over instead of using four spaces).
• Begin your annotation immediately after the bibliographic information of the source ends; don't skip a line down unless you have been told to do so by your instructor.
APA (American Psychological Association)
Check out our handout on APA documentation basic APA bibliography formatting and rules.
• Natural and social sciences, such as psychology, nursing, sociology, and social work use APA documentation. It is also used in economics, business, and criminology. These annotations are often succinct summaries.
• Annotated bibliographies for APA format do not require a special title. Use the usual "References" designation.
• Like MLA, APA uses a hanging indent: the first line is set flush with the left margin, and all other lines are indented four spaces (you may ask your instructor if it's okay to tab over instead of using four spaces).
• After the bibliographic citation, drop down to the next line to begin the annotation, but don't skip an extra line.
• The entire annotation is indented an additional two spaces, so that means each of its lines will be six spaces from the margin (if your instructor has said that it's okay to tab over instead of using the four spaces rule, indent the annotation two more spaces in from that point).
CBE (Council of Biology Editors)
Check out our handout on CBE documentation for basic CBE bibliography formatting and rules.
• CBE documentation is used by the plant sciences, zoology, microbiology, and the medical sciences.
• Annotated bibliographies for CBE format do not require a special title. Use the usual "References," "Cited References," or "Literature Cited," and set it flush with the left margin.
• Bibliographies for CBE in general are in a slightly smaller font than the rest of the paper.
• When using the name-year system, like MLA and APA, the first line of each entry is set flush with the left margin, and all subsequent lines, including the annotation, are indented three or four spaces.
• When using the citation-sequence method, each entry begins two spaces after the number, and every line, including the annotation, will be indented to match the beginning of the entry, or may be slightly further indented, as in the case of journals.
• After the bibliographic citation, drop down to the next line to begin the annotation, but don't skip an extra line. The entire annotation follows the indentation of the bibliographic entry, whether it's N-Y or C-S format.
• Annotations in CBE are generally a smaller font size than the rest of the bibliographic information.
After choosing a documentation format, you'll choose from a variety of annotation categories presented in the following section. Each type of annotation highlights a particular approach to presenting a source to a reader. For instance, an annotation could provide a summary of the source only, or it could also provide some additional evaluation of that material.
In addition to making choices related to the content of the annotation, you'll also need to choose a style of writing-for instance, telescopic versus paragraph form. Your writing style isn't dictated by the content of your annotation. Writing style simply refers to the way you've chosen to convey written information. A discussion of writing style follows the section on annotation types.
Types of annotations:
As you now know, one annotation does not fit all! There are different kinds of annotations, depending on what might be most important for your reader to learn about a source. Your assignments will usually make it clear which citation format you need to use, but they may not always specify which type of annotation to employ. In that case, you'll either need to pick your instructor's brain a little to see what she wants or use clue words from the assignment itself to make a decision. For instance, the assignment may tell you that your annotative bibliography should give evidence proving an analytical understanding of the sources you've used. The word analytical clues you in to the idea that you must evaluate the sources you're working with and provide some kind of critique.
Summary Annotations:
There are two kinds of summarizing annotations, informative and indicative.
Summarizing annotations in general have a couple of defining features:
• They sum up the content of the source, as a book report might.
• They give an overview of the arguments and proofs/evidence addressed in the work and note the resulting conclusion.
• They do not judge the work they are discussing. Leave that to the critical/evaluative annotations.
• When appropriate, they describe the author's methodology or approach to material. For instance, you might mention if the source is an ethnography or if the author employs a particular kind of theory.
Informative annotation
Informative annotations sometimes read like straight summaries of the source material, but they often spend a little more time summarizing relevant information about the author or the work itself.
Indicative annotation:
Indicative annotation is the second type of summary annotation, but it does not attempt to include actual information from the argument itself. Instead, it gives general information about what kinds of questions or issues are addressed by the work. This sometimes includes the use of chapter titles.
Critical/Evaluative:
Evaluative annotations don't just summarize. In addition to tackling the points addressed in summary annotations, evaluative annotations:
• evaluate the source or author critically (biases, lack of evidence, objective, etc.).
• show how the work may or may not be useful for a particular field of study or audience.
• explain how researching this material assisted your own project.
Combination:
An annotated bibliography may combine elements of all the types. In fact, most of them fall into this category: a little summarizing and describing, a little evaluation.
Writing Style:
Ok, next! So what does it mean to use different writing styles as opposed to different kinds of content? Content is what belongs in the annotation, and style is the way you write it up. First, choose which content type you need to compose, and then choose the style you're going to use to write it:
Telescopic:
This kind of annotated bibliography is a study in succinctness. It uses a minimalist treatment of both information and sentence structure, without sacrificing clarity. Warning: this kind of writing can be harder than you might think.
Paragraph:
Don't skimp on this kind of annotated bibliography. If your instructor has asked for paragraph form, it likely means that you'll need to include several elements in the annotation, or that she expects a more in-depth description or evaluation, for instance. Make sure to provide an entire paragraph's worth treatment of the work.
Conclusion:
As you can see now, bibliographies and annotations are really a series of organized steps. They require meticulous attention, but in the end, you've got an entire testimony to all the research and work you've done. At the end of this handout you'll find examples of informative, indicative, evaluative, combination, telescopic, and paragraph annotated bibliography entries in MLA, APA, and CBE formats. Use these examples as your guide to creating an annotated bibliography that makes you look like the expert you are!
Bibliography
"Annotated Bibliography." The Writing Center. 2003. University of Wisconsin, Madison.
5 March 2004
Bell, I. F. and J. Gallup. A Reference Guide to English, American, and Canadian
Literature. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1971. 68.
Bizzell, Patricia and Bruce Herzburg. Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing. 3rd
ed. Boston: Bedford Books of St. Martin's Press, 1991. 47.
Carlson, Laurie. "Annotated Bibliographies." 6 April 2004. KU Writing Center. University
of Kansas. 8 April 2004
Center for Information on Language Teaching and The English Teaching Information
Center of the British Council. Language-teaching Bibliography. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1968. 146.
Engle, Michael, Amy Blumenthal, and Tony Cosgrave. "How to Prepare an
Annotated Bibliography." 20 November 2002. Reference Services Division, Olin and
Uris Libraries Cornell University Libraries. 8 April 2004
Gibaldi, Joseph, ed. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 5th ed. New York:
Modern Language Association of America, 1999.
Grasso, Michael A. "Research Agenda of Foundational Material." Speech Recognition
Annotated Bibliography. Speech Input in Multimodal Environments: Effects of
Perceptual Structure on Speed, Accuracy and Acceptance. 29 March 29, 2004
"How to Write Annotated Bibliographies." 22 April 2003. Queen Elizabeth II Library of
Memorial University of Newfoundland Libraries. 8 April 2004
American Psychological Association. Publication Manual of the American Psychological
Association. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2001.
Spatt, Brenda. Writing from Sources. 3rd ed. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991. 32.
Tate, Thomas. The Write Place. May 2000. St. Cloud State University, Minnesota. 8
April 2004
© Copyright for this article belongs to The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Source of the article: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/annotated_bibliographies.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
What is plagiarism?
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Plagiarism
This handout explains what plagiarism is and outlines steps students can follow to avoid plagiarizing.
What is plagiarism?
You may have heard so many different definitions of plagiarism that you feel confused about exactly what it is. Despite all this variation, you can avoid the serious charge of committing plagiarism by adopting a conservative definition of the term and following the guidelines below. The UNC Honor Court defines plagiarism as "the deliberate or reckless representation of another's words, thoughts, or ideas as one's own without attribution in connection with submission of academic work, whether graded or otherwise." (Instrument of Student Judicial Governance, Section II.B.1.).
Why are my instructors so concerned about plagiarism?
In order to understand plagiarism, it helps first to understand the process of sharing and creating ideas in the university. All knowledge is built from previous knowledge. As we read, study, peform experiments, and gather perspectives, we are using other people's ideas. Building on other people's ideas, we create our own. When you put your ideas on paper, your instructors want to distinguish between the building block ideas borrowed from other people and your own newly reasoned perspectives or conclusions. You make these distinctions in a written paper by citing the sources for your building block ideas. Giving clear credit for ideas matters in the professional community as well as in school.
Think of it this way: in the vast majority of assignments you'll get in college, your instructors will ask you to read something (think of this material as the building blocks) and then write a paper in which you analyze one or more aspects of what you have read (think of this as the new structure you build). Essentially, your instructors are asking you to do three things:
• Show that you have a clear understanding of the material you've read (that is, explain who says what about your subject matter).
• Refer to your sources to support the ideas you have developed.
• Distinguish your analysis of what you've read from the author(s) analyses in what you've read.
When you cite a source, you are using an expert's ideas as proof or evidence of a new idea that you are trying to communicate to the reader.
What about "common knowledge"?
Of course, in every professional field, experts consider some ideas "common knowledge," but remember that you're not a professional (yet). In fact, you're just learning about those concepts in the course you're taking, so the material you are reading may not yet be "common knowledge" to you. In order to decide if the material you want to use in your paper constitutes "common knowledge," you may find it helpful to ask yourself the following questions:
• Did I know this information before I took this course?
• Did this information/idea come from my own brain?
If you answer "no" to either or both of these questions, then the information is not "common knowledge" to you. In these cases, you need to cite your source(s) and indicate where you first learned this bit of what may be "common knowledge" in the field.
What about paraphrasing?
Paraphrasing means taking another person's ideas and putting those ideas in your own words. Paraphrasing does NOT mean changing a word or two in someone else's sentence, changing the sentence structure while maintaining the original words, or changing a few words to synonyms. If you are tempted to rearrange a sentence in any of these ways, you are writing too close to the original. That's plagiarizing, not paraphrasing.
Paraphrasing is a fine way to use another person's ideas to support your argument as long as you attribute the material to the author and cite the source in the text at the end of the sentence. In order to make sure you are paraphrasing in the first place, take notes from your reading with the book closed. Doing so will make it easier to put the ideas in your own words. When you are unsure if you are writing too close to the original, check with your instructor BEFORE you turn in the paper for a grade.
How can I avoid plagiarizing?
Now that you understand what plagiarism is, you're ready to employ the following three simple steps to avoid plagiarizing in your written work.
Step 1: Accentuate the positive. Change your attitude about using citations.
Do you feel that you use too many citations? Too few? Many students worry that if they use "too many" citations their instructors will think that they're relying too heavily on the source material and therefore not thinking for themselves. In fact, however, using citations allows you to demonstrate clearly how well you understand the course material while also making clear distinctions between what the author(s) have to say and your analysis of their ideas.
Thus, rather than making your paper look less intellectually sophisticated, using citations allows you to show of your understanding of the material and the assignment. And instead of showing what you don't know, citing your sources provides evidence of what you do know, and of the authority behind your knowledge. Just make sure that your paper has a point, main idea, or thesis that is your own and that you organize the source material around that point.
Are you worried that you have "too few" citations? Double-check your assignment to see if you have been given any indication of the number or kind of source materials expected. Then share your writing with another reader. Do you have enough evidence or proof to support the ideas you put forward? Why should the reader believe the points you have made? Would adding another, expert voice strengthen your argument? Who else agrees or disagrees with the ideas you have written? Have you paraphrased ideas that you have read or heard? If so, you need to cite them. Have you referred to or relied on course material to develop your ideas? If you, you need to cite it as well.
Step 2: How can you keep track of all this information? Improve your note-taking skills.
Once you've reconsidered your position on using citations, you need to rethink your note-taking practices. Taking careful notes is simply the best way to avoid plagiarism. And improving your note-taking skills will also allow you to refine your critical thinking skills. Here's how the process works:
(1) Start by carefully noting all the bibliographic information you'll need for your works cited page. (See #3 for more details on how to determine exactly what information you'll need for different kinds of sources.) If you're photocopying an article or section out of a book or journal, why not photocopy the front pages of the source as well? That way you'll have the bibliographic information if you need it later. If you forget to gather the information for a book, you can usually get it from the library's online card catalogue. Simply pull up the entry for the book you used to see the bibliographic information on that source. If you're working on an article from a journal, you can return to the database from which you got the original citation to find the bibliographic information.
(2) Next, try thinking about your notes as a kind of transitional "space" between what you've read and what you're preparing to write. Imagine yourself having a conversation with the author of the story/novel/play/poem/article/book you're reading, in which you repeatedly ask yourself the following questions:
• What is the author trying to explain?
• Why does s/he think these points are important?
• How has s/he decided to construct the argument?
• How does the structure of the argument affect the reader's response to the author's ideas?
• How effective is the author's argument?
Adopting this "conversational" approach to note-taking will improve your analysis of the material by leading you to notice not just what the author says, but also how and why the author communicates his or her ideas. This strategy will also help you avoid the very common temptation of thinking that the author's way of explaining something is much better than anything you could write. If you are tempted to borrow the author's language, write your notes with the book closed to ensure that you are putting the ideas into your own words. If you've already taken a step "away" from the author's words in your notes, you'll find it easier to use your own words in the paper you write.
(3) Finally, be careful to use quotation marks to distinguish the exact words used by the author from your own words so that when you return to your notes later in the writing process, you won't have to guess which ideas are yours and which ones came directly from the text. You'll have to experiment with different note-taking techniques until you find the one that works best for you, but here's one example of how your notes might look:
James Leoni, trans. Ten Books on Architecture by Leone Battista Alberti. London: Alec Tirani, Ltd., 1955.
BOOK I, CHAPTER X: "Of the Columns and Walls, and Some Observations Relating to the Columns"
• (p. 14) Alberti begins by talking about walls, and then says a row of columns is simply "a Wall open and discontinued in several Places;" he says the column supports the roof, and that columns are the most beautiful of the architectural elements; here, he'll address what columns have in common, and later he'll discuss their differences.
• (p. 14) all columns rest on a plinth (or dye), which supports a base, which supports the column, which is topped by a capital; columns are usually widest at the base, and taper toward the top; Alberti says the column was invented simply to hold up the roof, but men sought to make their buildings "immortal and eternal," so they embellished columns with architraves, entablatures, etc.
Notice that you can adapt this note-taking strategy to any format - whether you prefer to take notes by hand, on note cards, on your computer, or some other way. For more information on developing an effective note-taking technique, you can consult any grammar handbook. Here are a few particularly helpful ones:
• Leonard J. Rosen and Laurence Behren. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000. OR Allyn & Bacon online at: www.abacon.com
• Joseph Gibaldi. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
• Kate L. Turabian. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Step 3: So many details, so little time! Locate the appropriate style manual.
Don't worry - no one can remember all the different citation conventions used in all the different university disciplines! Citing your sources appropriately is a matter of:
1. determining which style your instructor wants you to use
2. finding the appropriate style manual
3. copying the "formula" it gives for each type of source you use
First, carefully read the assignment to determine what citation style your instructor wants you to use (APA, MLA, and CBE are the most common). If s/he doesn't specify a citation style in the assignment, check your syllabus and/or coursepack. If you can't find the citation style in either of those places, ask your instructor what style s/he prefers.
Second, academic citation styles follow specific formats, so making an "educated guess" about how to structure your citations and works cited page is usually not a good idea. Instead, find the specified style manual in the reference section of the library, on the reference shelf in the Writing Center, or online.
Finally, style manuals provide easy-to-follow formulas for your citations. For example, the MLA handbook provides the following format for citing a book by a single author:
Author's name. Title of the book. Publication information.
You can use this "formula" for your own citation by simply "plugging in" the information called for, following the format of the "formula" itself. Here's an example of how that might look:
Berlage, Gai Ingham. Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History. Westport: Greenwood, 1994.
If you'd like more information on the MLA, APA, or CBE styles, see our handouts on them.
How can I tell whether I've plagiarized?
If you've followed the above guidelines but still aren't sure whether you've plagiarized, you can double-check your work using the checklist below.
You need to cite your source, even if:
1. you put all direct quotes in quotation marks
2. you changed the words used by the author into synonyms
3. you completely paraphrased the ideas to which you referred
4. your sentence is mostly made up of your own thoughts, but contains a reference to the author's ideas
5. you mention the author's name in the sentence
**The moral of this handout: When in doubt, give a citation**
Where can I look for more information on UNC's policies regarding plagiarism?
If you're interested in exactly how plagiarism is defined for the UNC community, see the Honor System webpage Because it is considered a form of academic cheating and constitutes a serious violation of the University's Honor Code, the usual punishment for a student found guilty of plagiarizing is suspension for one semester and an "F" in the course.
Also see the Center for Instructional Technology's informative webpage on plagiarism.
Bibliography
Alberti, Leone Battista. Ten Books on Architecture. James Leoni, trans. London: Alec Tirani, Ltd., 1955.
Leonard J. Rosen and Laurence Behren. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000. OR Allyn & Bacon online at: www.abacon.com
Joseph Gibaldi. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
Kate L. Turabian. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
© Copyright for this article belongs to The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
This document was re-printed under the Creative Commons License.Source of the article: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/plagiarism.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Plagiarism
This handout explains what plagiarism is and outlines steps students can follow to avoid plagiarizing.
What is plagiarism?
You may have heard so many different definitions of plagiarism that you feel confused about exactly what it is. Despite all this variation, you can avoid the serious charge of committing plagiarism by adopting a conservative definition of the term and following the guidelines below. The UNC Honor Court defines plagiarism as "the deliberate or reckless representation of another's words, thoughts, or ideas as one's own without attribution in connection with submission of academic work, whether graded or otherwise." (Instrument of Student Judicial Governance, Section II.B.1.).
Why are my instructors so concerned about plagiarism?
In order to understand plagiarism, it helps first to understand the process of sharing and creating ideas in the university. All knowledge is built from previous knowledge. As we read, study, peform experiments, and gather perspectives, we are using other people's ideas. Building on other people's ideas, we create our own. When you put your ideas on paper, your instructors want to distinguish between the building block ideas borrowed from other people and your own newly reasoned perspectives or conclusions. You make these distinctions in a written paper by citing the sources for your building block ideas. Giving clear credit for ideas matters in the professional community as well as in school.
Think of it this way: in the vast majority of assignments you'll get in college, your instructors will ask you to read something (think of this material as the building blocks) and then write a paper in which you analyze one or more aspects of what you have read (think of this as the new structure you build). Essentially, your instructors are asking you to do three things:
• Show that you have a clear understanding of the material you've read (that is, explain who says what about your subject matter).
• Refer to your sources to support the ideas you have developed.
• Distinguish your analysis of what you've read from the author(s) analyses in what you've read.
When you cite a source, you are using an expert's ideas as proof or evidence of a new idea that you are trying to communicate to the reader.
What about "common knowledge"?
Of course, in every professional field, experts consider some ideas "common knowledge," but remember that you're not a professional (yet). In fact, you're just learning about those concepts in the course you're taking, so the material you are reading may not yet be "common knowledge" to you. In order to decide if the material you want to use in your paper constitutes "common knowledge," you may find it helpful to ask yourself the following questions:
• Did I know this information before I took this course?
• Did this information/idea come from my own brain?
If you answer "no" to either or both of these questions, then the information is not "common knowledge" to you. In these cases, you need to cite your source(s) and indicate where you first learned this bit of what may be "common knowledge" in the field.
What about paraphrasing?
Paraphrasing means taking another person's ideas and putting those ideas in your own words. Paraphrasing does NOT mean changing a word or two in someone else's sentence, changing the sentence structure while maintaining the original words, or changing a few words to synonyms. If you are tempted to rearrange a sentence in any of these ways, you are writing too close to the original. That's plagiarizing, not paraphrasing.
Paraphrasing is a fine way to use another person's ideas to support your argument as long as you attribute the material to the author and cite the source in the text at the end of the sentence. In order to make sure you are paraphrasing in the first place, take notes from your reading with the book closed. Doing so will make it easier to put the ideas in your own words. When you are unsure if you are writing too close to the original, check with your instructor BEFORE you turn in the paper for a grade.
How can I avoid plagiarizing?
Now that you understand what plagiarism is, you're ready to employ the following three simple steps to avoid plagiarizing in your written work.
Step 1: Accentuate the positive. Change your attitude about using citations.
Do you feel that you use too many citations? Too few? Many students worry that if they use "too many" citations their instructors will think that they're relying too heavily on the source material and therefore not thinking for themselves. In fact, however, using citations allows you to demonstrate clearly how well you understand the course material while also making clear distinctions between what the author(s) have to say and your analysis of their ideas.
Thus, rather than making your paper look less intellectually sophisticated, using citations allows you to show of your understanding of the material and the assignment. And instead of showing what you don't know, citing your sources provides evidence of what you do know, and of the authority behind your knowledge. Just make sure that your paper has a point, main idea, or thesis that is your own and that you organize the source material around that point.
Are you worried that you have "too few" citations? Double-check your assignment to see if you have been given any indication of the number or kind of source materials expected. Then share your writing with another reader. Do you have enough evidence or proof to support the ideas you put forward? Why should the reader believe the points you have made? Would adding another, expert voice strengthen your argument? Who else agrees or disagrees with the ideas you have written? Have you paraphrased ideas that you have read or heard? If so, you need to cite them. Have you referred to or relied on course material to develop your ideas? If you, you need to cite it as well.
Step 2: How can you keep track of all this information? Improve your note-taking skills.
Once you've reconsidered your position on using citations, you need to rethink your note-taking practices. Taking careful notes is simply the best way to avoid plagiarism. And improving your note-taking skills will also allow you to refine your critical thinking skills. Here's how the process works:
(1) Start by carefully noting all the bibliographic information you'll need for your works cited page. (See #3 for more details on how to determine exactly what information you'll need for different kinds of sources.) If you're photocopying an article or section out of a book or journal, why not photocopy the front pages of the source as well? That way you'll have the bibliographic information if you need it later. If you forget to gather the information for a book, you can usually get it from the library's online card catalogue. Simply pull up the entry for the book you used to see the bibliographic information on that source. If you're working on an article from a journal, you can return to the database from which you got the original citation to find the bibliographic information.
(2) Next, try thinking about your notes as a kind of transitional "space" between what you've read and what you're preparing to write. Imagine yourself having a conversation with the author of the story/novel/play/poem/article/book you're reading, in which you repeatedly ask yourself the following questions:
• What is the author trying to explain?
• Why does s/he think these points are important?
• How has s/he decided to construct the argument?
• How does the structure of the argument affect the reader's response to the author's ideas?
• How effective is the author's argument?
Adopting this "conversational" approach to note-taking will improve your analysis of the material by leading you to notice not just what the author says, but also how and why the author communicates his or her ideas. This strategy will also help you avoid the very common temptation of thinking that the author's way of explaining something is much better than anything you could write. If you are tempted to borrow the author's language, write your notes with the book closed to ensure that you are putting the ideas into your own words. If you've already taken a step "away" from the author's words in your notes, you'll find it easier to use your own words in the paper you write.
(3) Finally, be careful to use quotation marks to distinguish the exact words used by the author from your own words so that when you return to your notes later in the writing process, you won't have to guess which ideas are yours and which ones came directly from the text. You'll have to experiment with different note-taking techniques until you find the one that works best for you, but here's one example of how your notes might look:
James Leoni, trans. Ten Books on Architecture by Leone Battista Alberti. London: Alec Tirani, Ltd., 1955.
BOOK I, CHAPTER X: "Of the Columns and Walls, and Some Observations Relating to the Columns"
• (p. 14) Alberti begins by talking about walls, and then says a row of columns is simply "a Wall open and discontinued in several Places;" he says the column supports the roof, and that columns are the most beautiful of the architectural elements; here, he'll address what columns have in common, and later he'll discuss their differences.
• (p. 14) all columns rest on a plinth (or dye), which supports a base, which supports the column, which is topped by a capital; columns are usually widest at the base, and taper toward the top; Alberti says the column was invented simply to hold up the roof, but men sought to make their buildings "immortal and eternal," so they embellished columns with architraves, entablatures, etc.
Notice that you can adapt this note-taking strategy to any format - whether you prefer to take notes by hand, on note cards, on your computer, or some other way. For more information on developing an effective note-taking technique, you can consult any grammar handbook. Here are a few particularly helpful ones:
• Leonard J. Rosen and Laurence Behren. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000. OR Allyn & Bacon online at: www.abacon.com
• Joseph Gibaldi. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
• Kate L. Turabian. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Step 3: So many details, so little time! Locate the appropriate style manual.
Don't worry - no one can remember all the different citation conventions used in all the different university disciplines! Citing your sources appropriately is a matter of:
1. determining which style your instructor wants you to use
2. finding the appropriate style manual
3. copying the "formula" it gives for each type of source you use
First, carefully read the assignment to determine what citation style your instructor wants you to use (APA, MLA, and CBE are the most common). If s/he doesn't specify a citation style in the assignment, check your syllabus and/or coursepack. If you can't find the citation style in either of those places, ask your instructor what style s/he prefers.
Second, academic citation styles follow specific formats, so making an "educated guess" about how to structure your citations and works cited page is usually not a good idea. Instead, find the specified style manual in the reference section of the library, on the reference shelf in the Writing Center, or online.
Finally, style manuals provide easy-to-follow formulas for your citations. For example, the MLA handbook provides the following format for citing a book by a single author:
Author's name. Title of the book. Publication information.
You can use this "formula" for your own citation by simply "plugging in" the information called for, following the format of the "formula" itself. Here's an example of how that might look:
Berlage, Gai Ingham. Women in Baseball: The Forgotten History. Westport: Greenwood, 1994.
If you'd like more information on the MLA, APA, or CBE styles, see our handouts on them.
How can I tell whether I've plagiarized?
If you've followed the above guidelines but still aren't sure whether you've plagiarized, you can double-check your work using the checklist below.
You need to cite your source, even if:
1. you put all direct quotes in quotation marks
2. you changed the words used by the author into synonyms
3. you completely paraphrased the ideas to which you referred
4. your sentence is mostly made up of your own thoughts, but contains a reference to the author's ideas
5. you mention the author's name in the sentence
**The moral of this handout: When in doubt, give a citation**
Where can I look for more information on UNC's policies regarding plagiarism?
If you're interested in exactly how plagiarism is defined for the UNC community, see the Honor System webpage Because it is considered a form of academic cheating and constitutes a serious violation of the University's Honor Code, the usual punishment for a student found guilty of plagiarizing is suspension for one semester and an "F" in the course.
Also see the Center for Instructional Technology's informative webpage on plagiarism.
Bibliography
Alberti, Leone Battista. Ten Books on Architecture. James Leoni, trans. London: Alec Tirani, Ltd., 1955.
Leonard J. Rosen and Laurence Behren. The Allyn & Bacon Handbook. Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000. OR Allyn & Bacon online at: www.abacon.com
Joseph Gibaldi. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 2003.
Kate L. Turabian. A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
© Copyright for this article belongs to The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
This document was re-printed under the Creative Commons License.Source of the article: http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/plagiarism.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Plagiarism
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Plagiarism
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." You heard that once as a kid, so you thought you'd try it, then got teased for being a copycat. Childhood is rough. I'm tempted to mix in another metaphor and suggest that the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. By that I mean that where you got teased as a kid, you can now get yourself thrown out of university, or later in life, you might find your career destroyed, or even being sued for copyright infringement. The confusion is the same though as when we were kids - we are told to refer to previous work, to report other people's findings and describe their relevance to the work we are proposing or have done; yet at the same time we are told that we may not use their words. Who are we to suppose that we can tell the story better than the person who did the work in the first place?
The trick is to make sure in our texts that we are citing people properly. In literature, the actual words used by the original author are the important bit, so people tend to quote passages verbatim.
"They do so like this. A block of quoted text is set aside, usually quotated, and often in another font, or differently formatted on the page, always with a reference to who wrote the original words."
-- William Megill, University of Bath website, 2003.
Generally speaking in science and engineering, where the concept is what matters, rather than the exact words, we tend to paraphrase, to say the same thing in another way. This does not mean that we do not still have to reference the original author's words. Look at the following example:
While researching a paper on the mechanics of fibre-reinforced jellyfish mesoglea, I came across a paper entitled, "The fibrous system in the extracellular matrix of hydromedusae," by Christian Weber and Volker Schmid. There is a segment of their paper which is particularly relevant to what I am writing about. It reads:
"The thick fibres vary in diameter (up to 1.8μm). They are composed of many subunits with diameters up to 150A (Fig.13). These subunits closely resemble the fibrils arranged in the three-dimensional network. High magnification micrographs of longitudinal sections reveal the vertical fibres to be woven together by many striated fibrils, which in return seem to be a product of assembly of the subunits (Fig.14)."
Weber C, Schmid V (1985) The fibrous system in the extracellular matrix of hydromedusae. Tissue & Cell 17: 811-822.
When I rewrote this to include it in my paper, what I wrote was:
"Thick fibres (1.8μm dia.) are bundles of <15nm fibrils. They are woven from many fibrils, like a rope (Weber & Schmid 1985)."
I didn't need all of the detail that Weber & Schmid needed in their original paper, all I wanted to do was describe the geometry of the fibres so that I could talk about them further in my own paper. If the reader wants the detail, they are refered to Weber & Schmid's original paper, and given enough information to be able to find it readily.
When describing observations, it is often difficult to do better than the original author. For example, if I had wanted to describe only the diameter of the fibres, then I would have been hard-pressed to do anything other than to say, exactly as Weber & Schmid did, "The thick fibres vary in diameter, up to 1.8μm (Weber & Schmid 1985)." For short passages which are simply statements of fact, this is ok. However, for longer passages, if you really can't paraphrase (not going to happen very often), then make sure to enclose the passage in quotes. If it's really long, then set it aside, as I've done above.
The exercise is not always easy, particularly when you start trying to pull a literature review together out of a dozen papers. There are a number of useful tricks to get around the problem. Here's how I do things - don't feel you must do things this way, but if the technique helps, then help yourself.
I start by reading with a highlighter pen. Usually I will read through the paper once (usually in the order abstract-introduction-discussion-results-methods) to get a feel for what the authors have done. On a second read, I highlight the bits of the text that I feel are important and relevant for the review I'm trying to write. Next I compile my highlighted sentences into a summary paragraph, paraphrasing as much as possible to get down to the details alone. Then I put the paper away, and repeat the process with the rest of my collection of papers. I end up with an annotated bibiliography. It is this final document that I rely on as I write the review. Only once I've written a complete rough draft do I come back to the original papers to confirm and extract further details.
Here's that paragraph again, this time as a flowchart:
1. Read through the paper once
2. Read it again, this time with a highlighter
3. Paraphrase highlighted sentences into a summary paragraph for the paper
4. Repeat the process for each paper
5. Compile an annotated bibliography
6. Write the review, refering to the material in the original papers.
There are obviously many other ways to do the same thing. One other method that I have used successfully in the past uses index cards and a big table. Start as before by reading the paper and highlighting important/relevant passages. Then summarise (don't copy word for word) those passages onto index cards, one idea per card. Include the citation on the back of the card. Lay the cards out on a big table, and organise them by topic, relevance, etc. The piles of cards you end up with are the sections of your review - write up paragraphs, one idea per paragraph, put 'em together, and voilà you've got a rough draft of your review.
I need to make one additional comment about working in a second language. It is difficult to paraphrase in somebody else's language. (Believe me, I know the feeling: I teach in three languages.) The temptation is therefore that much stronger just to copy what somebody else has written. To do this without citing the source is just as unacceptable for allophones (non-native speakers) as it is for anglophones (native English speakers). Don't do it.
My suggestion is this: Try turning the situation around. Use your non-English language skills to your advantage. Instead of copying the English sentences verbatim, try paraphrasing the meaning into your own language. When you translate again later, after you've assembled the structure of the document in your own language, it will nearly be impossible for you to reproduce the exact set of words used by the original authors. Don't forget however to cite them as the source of the concepts. Don't worry too much about your English for the first draft. You can fix that up later as you proofread the document.
© Copyright for this article belongs to William Megill
Source of the article: http://www.bath.ac.uk/mech-eng/units/me50173/plagiarism.dwt
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Plagiarism
"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." You heard that once as a kid, so you thought you'd try it, then got teased for being a copycat. Childhood is rough. I'm tempted to mix in another metaphor and suggest that the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys. By that I mean that where you got teased as a kid, you can now get yourself thrown out of university, or later in life, you might find your career destroyed, or even being sued for copyright infringement. The confusion is the same though as when we were kids - we are told to refer to previous work, to report other people's findings and describe their relevance to the work we are proposing or have done; yet at the same time we are told that we may not use their words. Who are we to suppose that we can tell the story better than the person who did the work in the first place?
The trick is to make sure in our texts that we are citing people properly. In literature, the actual words used by the original author are the important bit, so people tend to quote passages verbatim.
"They do so like this. A block of quoted text is set aside, usually quotated, and often in another font, or differently formatted on the page, always with a reference to who wrote the original words."
-- William Megill, University of Bath website, 2003.
Generally speaking in science and engineering, where the concept is what matters, rather than the exact words, we tend to paraphrase, to say the same thing in another way. This does not mean that we do not still have to reference the original author's words. Look at the following example:
While researching a paper on the mechanics of fibre-reinforced jellyfish mesoglea, I came across a paper entitled, "The fibrous system in the extracellular matrix of hydromedusae," by Christian Weber and Volker Schmid. There is a segment of their paper which is particularly relevant to what I am writing about. It reads:
"The thick fibres vary in diameter (up to 1.8μm). They are composed of many subunits with diameters up to 150A (Fig.13). These subunits closely resemble the fibrils arranged in the three-dimensional network. High magnification micrographs of longitudinal sections reveal the vertical fibres to be woven together by many striated fibrils, which in return seem to be a product of assembly of the subunits (Fig.14)."
Weber C, Schmid V (1985) The fibrous system in the extracellular matrix of hydromedusae. Tissue & Cell 17: 811-822.
When I rewrote this to include it in my paper, what I wrote was:
"Thick fibres (1.8μm dia.) are bundles of <15nm fibrils. They are woven from many fibrils, like a rope (Weber & Schmid 1985)."
I didn't need all of the detail that Weber & Schmid needed in their original paper, all I wanted to do was describe the geometry of the fibres so that I could talk about them further in my own paper. If the reader wants the detail, they are refered to Weber & Schmid's original paper, and given enough information to be able to find it readily.
When describing observations, it is often difficult to do better than the original author. For example, if I had wanted to describe only the diameter of the fibres, then I would have been hard-pressed to do anything other than to say, exactly as Weber & Schmid did, "The thick fibres vary in diameter, up to 1.8μm (Weber & Schmid 1985)." For short passages which are simply statements of fact, this is ok. However, for longer passages, if you really can't paraphrase (not going to happen very often), then make sure to enclose the passage in quotes. If it's really long, then set it aside, as I've done above.
The exercise is not always easy, particularly when you start trying to pull a literature review together out of a dozen papers. There are a number of useful tricks to get around the problem. Here's how I do things - don't feel you must do things this way, but if the technique helps, then help yourself.
I start by reading with a highlighter pen. Usually I will read through the paper once (usually in the order abstract-introduction-discussion-results-methods) to get a feel for what the authors have done. On a second read, I highlight the bits of the text that I feel are important and relevant for the review I'm trying to write. Next I compile my highlighted sentences into a summary paragraph, paraphrasing as much as possible to get down to the details alone. Then I put the paper away, and repeat the process with the rest of my collection of papers. I end up with an annotated bibiliography. It is this final document that I rely on as I write the review. Only once I've written a complete rough draft do I come back to the original papers to confirm and extract further details.
Here's that paragraph again, this time as a flowchart:
1. Read through the paper once
2. Read it again, this time with a highlighter
3. Paraphrase highlighted sentences into a summary paragraph for the paper
4. Repeat the process for each paper
5. Compile an annotated bibliography
6. Write the review, refering to the material in the original papers.
There are obviously many other ways to do the same thing. One other method that I have used successfully in the past uses index cards and a big table. Start as before by reading the paper and highlighting important/relevant passages. Then summarise (don't copy word for word) those passages onto index cards, one idea per card. Include the citation on the back of the card. Lay the cards out on a big table, and organise them by topic, relevance, etc. The piles of cards you end up with are the sections of your review - write up paragraphs, one idea per paragraph, put 'em together, and voilà you've got a rough draft of your review.
I need to make one additional comment about working in a second language. It is difficult to paraphrase in somebody else's language. (Believe me, I know the feeling: I teach in three languages.) The temptation is therefore that much stronger just to copy what somebody else has written. To do this without citing the source is just as unacceptable for allophones (non-native speakers) as it is for anglophones (native English speakers). Don't do it.
My suggestion is this: Try turning the situation around. Use your non-English language skills to your advantage. Instead of copying the English sentences verbatim, try paraphrasing the meaning into your own language. When you translate again later, after you've assembled the structure of the document in your own language, it will nearly be impossible for you to reproduce the exact set of words used by the original authors. Don't forget however to cite them as the source of the concepts. Don't worry too much about your English for the first draft. You can fix that up later as you proofread the document.
© Copyright for this article belongs to William Megill
Source of the article: http://www.bath.ac.uk/mech-eng/units/me50173/plagiarism.dwt
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
How Not to Plagiarize
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
How Not to Plagiarize
From the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters:
It shall be an offence for a student knowingly:
(d) to represent as one's own any idea or expression of an idea or work of another in any academic examination or term test or in connection with any other form of academic work, i.e. to commit plagiarism.
Wherever in the Code an offence is described as depending on "knowing", the offence shall likewise be deemed to have been committed if the person ought reasonably to have known.
You've already heard the warnings about plagiarism. Obviously it's against the rules to buy essays or copy chunks from your friend's homework, and it's also plagiarism to borrow passages from books or articles or Web sites without identifying them. You know that the purpose of any paper is to show your own thinking, not create a patchwork of borrowed ideas. But you may still be wondering how you're supposed to give proper references to all the reading you've done and all the ideas you've encountered.
The point of documenting sources in academic papers is not just to avoid unpleasant visits to the Dean's office, but to demonstrate that you know what is going on in your field of study. It's also a courtesy to your readers because it helps them consult the material you've found. So mentioning what others have said doesn't lessen the credit you get for your own thinking—in fact, it adds to your credibility.
That's not to say that questions about ownership of ideas are simple. For one thing, the different systems for typing up references are admittedly a nuisance. (The file Standard Documentation Formats explains basic formats.) But the real challenge is establishing the relationship of your thinking to the reading you've done (yes, that includes the Internet). Here are some common questions and basic answers.
Can't I avoid problems just by listing every source in the bibliography? No, you need to integrate your acknowledgements into what you're saying. Give the reference as soon as you've mentioned the idea you're using, not just at the end of the paragraph. It's often a good idea to name the authors ("X says" and "Y argues against X,") and then indicate your own stand ("A more inclusive perspective, however, . . . "). The examples in this file and the one on Standard Documentation Formats show various wordings. Have a look at journal articles in your discipline to see how they refer to their sources.
If I put the ideas into my own words, do I still have to clog up my pages with all those names and numbers? Sorry—yes, you do. In academic papers, you need to keep mentioning authors and pages and dates to show how your ideas are related to those of the experts. It's sensible to use your own words because that saves space and lets you connect ideas smoothly. But whether you quote a passage directly in quotation marks, paraphrase it closely in your own words, or just summarize it rapidly, you need to identify the source then and there. (That applies to Internet sources too: you still need author and date as well as title and URL.)
But I didn't know anything about the subject until I started this paper. Do I have to give an acknowledgement for every point I make? You're safer to over-reference than to skimp. But you can cut down the clutter by recognizing that some ideas are "common knowledge" in the field—that is, taken for granted by people knowledgeable about the topic. Facts easily found in standard reference books are considered common knowledge: the date of the Armistice for World War I, for example, or the present population of Canada. You don't need to name a specific source for them, even if you learned them only when doing your research. In some disciplines, information covered in class lectures doesn't need acknowledgement. Some interpretive ideas may also be so well accepted that they don't need referencing: that Picasso is a distinguished modernist painter, for instance, or that smoking is harmful to health. Check with your professor or TA if you're in doubt whether a specific point is considered common knowledge in your field.
How can I tell what's my own idea and what has come from somebody else? Careful record-keeping helps. Always write down the author, title and publication information (including the identifying information for web pages) so you can attach names and dates to specific ideas. Taking good notes is also essential. Don't paste passages from webpages into your draft: that's asking for trouble. As you read any text—online or on the page—summarize useful points in your own words. If you record a phrase or sentence you might want to quote, put quotation marks around it in your notes to remind yourself that you're copying the author's exact words. And make a deliberate effort as you read to notice connections among ideas, especially contrasts and disagreements, and also to jot down questions or thoughts of your own. If you find as you write that you're following one or two of your sources too closely, deliberately look back in your notes for other sources that take different views; then write about the differences and why they exist.
So what exactly do I have to document? With experience reading academic prose, you'll soon get used to the ways writers in your field refer to their sources. Here are the main times you should give acknowledgements. (You'll notice many different formats in these examples. See the file on Standard Documentation Formats for advice on these systems.)
a). Quotations, paraphrases, or summaries: If you use the author's exact words, enclose them in quotation marks, or indent passages of more than four lines. (For more on the mechanics of quoting, visit the UC Writing Workshop's file on using quotations .) But it's seldom worthwhile to use long quotations. In literary studies, quote a few words of the work you're analysing and comment on them. In other disciplines, quote only when the original words are especially memorable. In most cases, use your own words to paraphrase or summarize the idea you want to discuss, emphasizing the points relevant to your argument. But be sure to name sources even when you are not using the exact original words. As in the examples below, it's often a good idea to mention the author's name. That gains you some reflected authority and indicates where the borrowing starts and stops.
e.g. As Morris puts it in The Human Zoo (1983), "we can always be sure that today's daring innovation will be tomorrow's respectability" (p. 189). [APA system]
e.g. Northrop Frye discusses comedy in terms of the spring spirit, which he defines as the infusion of new life and hope into human awareness of universal problems (Anatomy 163). The ending of The Tempest fits this pattern. [new MLA system—short title to distinguish among different works by same author].
b). Specific facts used as evidence for your argument or interpretation: First consider whether the facts you're mentioning are "common knowledge" according to the definition in point 3 above; if so, you may not need to give a reference. But when you're relying on facts that might be disputed within your discipline—perhaps newly published data—establish that they're trustworthy by showing that you got them from an authoritative source.
e.g. In September 1914, more than 1300 skirmishes were recorded on the Western Front.8 [traditional endnote/footnote system]
e.g. Other recent researchers (4,11,12) confirm the findings that drug treatment has little effect in the treatment of pancreatic pseudocysts. [numbered-note system for biomedical sciences]
c). Distinctive or authoritative ideas, whether you agree with them or not: The way you introduce a reference can indicate your attitude and lead into your own argument.
e.g. Writing in 1966, Ramsay Cook asserted that Canada was in a period of critical instability (174). That period is not yet over, judging by the same criteria of electoral changeability, economic uncertainty, and confusion in policy decisions. [new MLA system]
e.g. One writer (Von Daniken, 1970) even argues that the Great Pyramid was built for the practical purpose of guiding navigation. [APA system]
Coordinator of Writing Support, University of Toronto. Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. Last modified September 14, 2003
© Copyright for this article belongs to Dr. Marget Procter
Source of the article: http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/plagsep.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
How Not to Plagiarize
From the Code of Behaviour on Academic Matters:
It shall be an offence for a student knowingly:
(d) to represent as one's own any idea or expression of an idea or work of another in any academic examination or term test or in connection with any other form of academic work, i.e. to commit plagiarism.
Wherever in the Code an offence is described as depending on "knowing", the offence shall likewise be deemed to have been committed if the person ought reasonably to have known.
You've already heard the warnings about plagiarism. Obviously it's against the rules to buy essays or copy chunks from your friend's homework, and it's also plagiarism to borrow passages from books or articles or Web sites without identifying them. You know that the purpose of any paper is to show your own thinking, not create a patchwork of borrowed ideas. But you may still be wondering how you're supposed to give proper references to all the reading you've done and all the ideas you've encountered.
The point of documenting sources in academic papers is not just to avoid unpleasant visits to the Dean's office, but to demonstrate that you know what is going on in your field of study. It's also a courtesy to your readers because it helps them consult the material you've found. So mentioning what others have said doesn't lessen the credit you get for your own thinking—in fact, it adds to your credibility.
That's not to say that questions about ownership of ideas are simple. For one thing, the different systems for typing up references are admittedly a nuisance. (The file Standard Documentation Formats explains basic formats.) But the real challenge is establishing the relationship of your thinking to the reading you've done (yes, that includes the Internet). Here are some common questions and basic answers.
Can't I avoid problems just by listing every source in the bibliography? No, you need to integrate your acknowledgements into what you're saying. Give the reference as soon as you've mentioned the idea you're using, not just at the end of the paragraph. It's often a good idea to name the authors ("X says" and "Y argues against X,") and then indicate your own stand ("A more inclusive perspective, however, . . . "). The examples in this file and the one on Standard Documentation Formats show various wordings. Have a look at journal articles in your discipline to see how they refer to their sources.
If I put the ideas into my own words, do I still have to clog up my pages with all those names and numbers? Sorry—yes, you do. In academic papers, you need to keep mentioning authors and pages and dates to show how your ideas are related to those of the experts. It's sensible to use your own words because that saves space and lets you connect ideas smoothly. But whether you quote a passage directly in quotation marks, paraphrase it closely in your own words, or just summarize it rapidly, you need to identify the source then and there. (That applies to Internet sources too: you still need author and date as well as title and URL.)
But I didn't know anything about the subject until I started this paper. Do I have to give an acknowledgement for every point I make? You're safer to over-reference than to skimp. But you can cut down the clutter by recognizing that some ideas are "common knowledge" in the field—that is, taken for granted by people knowledgeable about the topic. Facts easily found in standard reference books are considered common knowledge: the date of the Armistice for World War I, for example, or the present population of Canada. You don't need to name a specific source for them, even if you learned them only when doing your research. In some disciplines, information covered in class lectures doesn't need acknowledgement. Some interpretive ideas may also be so well accepted that they don't need referencing: that Picasso is a distinguished modernist painter, for instance, or that smoking is harmful to health. Check with your professor or TA if you're in doubt whether a specific point is considered common knowledge in your field.
How can I tell what's my own idea and what has come from somebody else? Careful record-keeping helps. Always write down the author, title and publication information (including the identifying information for web pages) so you can attach names and dates to specific ideas. Taking good notes is also essential. Don't paste passages from webpages into your draft: that's asking for trouble. As you read any text—online or on the page—summarize useful points in your own words. If you record a phrase or sentence you might want to quote, put quotation marks around it in your notes to remind yourself that you're copying the author's exact words. And make a deliberate effort as you read to notice connections among ideas, especially contrasts and disagreements, and also to jot down questions or thoughts of your own. If you find as you write that you're following one or two of your sources too closely, deliberately look back in your notes for other sources that take different views; then write about the differences and why they exist.
So what exactly do I have to document? With experience reading academic prose, you'll soon get used to the ways writers in your field refer to their sources. Here are the main times you should give acknowledgements. (You'll notice many different formats in these examples. See the file on Standard Documentation Formats for advice on these systems.)
a). Quotations, paraphrases, or summaries: If you use the author's exact words, enclose them in quotation marks, or indent passages of more than four lines. (For more on the mechanics of quoting, visit the UC Writing Workshop's file on using quotations .) But it's seldom worthwhile to use long quotations. In literary studies, quote a few words of the work you're analysing and comment on them. In other disciplines, quote only when the original words are especially memorable. In most cases, use your own words to paraphrase or summarize the idea you want to discuss, emphasizing the points relevant to your argument. But be sure to name sources even when you are not using the exact original words. As in the examples below, it's often a good idea to mention the author's name. That gains you some reflected authority and indicates where the borrowing starts and stops.
e.g. As Morris puts it in The Human Zoo (1983), "we can always be sure that today's daring innovation will be tomorrow's respectability" (p. 189). [APA system]
e.g. Northrop Frye discusses comedy in terms of the spring spirit, which he defines as the infusion of new life and hope into human awareness of universal problems (Anatomy 163). The ending of The Tempest fits this pattern. [new MLA system—short title to distinguish among different works by same author].
b). Specific facts used as evidence for your argument or interpretation: First consider whether the facts you're mentioning are "common knowledge" according to the definition in point 3 above; if so, you may not need to give a reference. But when you're relying on facts that might be disputed within your discipline—perhaps newly published data—establish that they're trustworthy by showing that you got them from an authoritative source.
e.g. In September 1914, more than 1300 skirmishes were recorded on the Western Front.8 [traditional endnote/footnote system]
e.g. Other recent researchers (4,11,12) confirm the findings that drug treatment has little effect in the treatment of pancreatic pseudocysts. [numbered-note system for biomedical sciences]
c). Distinctive or authoritative ideas, whether you agree with them or not: The way you introduce a reference can indicate your attitude and lead into your own argument.
e.g. Writing in 1966, Ramsay Cook asserted that Canada was in a period of critical instability (174). That period is not yet over, judging by the same criteria of electoral changeability, economic uncertainty, and confusion in policy decisions. [new MLA system]
e.g. One writer (Von Daniken, 1970) even argues that the Great Pyramid was built for the practical purpose of guiding navigation. [APA system]
Coordinator of Writing Support, University of Toronto. Copyright 2005. All rights reserved. Last modified September 14, 2003
© Copyright for this article belongs to Dr. Marget Procter
Source of the article: http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/plagsep.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Hints for Avoiding Plagiarism
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Hints for Avoiding Plagiarism
We want reports that copy ideas from papers, and which cite the original paper to give them credit for the idea. If you do not cite the original paper, you are plagiarising their idea.
We do not want you to copy text from papers. If you feel it is important to copy the exact sentence(s) used in the original paper, you can put it in quotation marks and cite the original paper. However, this does not require any understanding so it does not get you many marks.
If you copy the text from a paper but do not put it in quotation marks and cite it, that is plagiarism.
To repeat: we want you to copy the ideas (and cite the author of the ideas) but not the words.
We want you to write things in your own words because we want to see if you understand the material. If you use other people's words we can't tell whether you understand the material.
Here are some examples of what you should and should not do. This is part of a paper:
XCS introduced a number of innovations, foremost among them its accuracy-based fitness under which rule fitness is related to its classification accuracy and not the magnitude of the reward it receives as in earlier systems. For lack of space we do not include the details of the XCS updates, but suffice it to say that XCS evaluates the prediction and fitness of each rule. Prediction is, for concept learning tasks such as those we study here, an estimate of the proportion of inputs matched by the rule which belong to the positive class. Prediction is used in conflict resolution, when matching rules perform a weighted vote on the classification of a data point. Accuracy is a measure of the consistency of prediction. Rules with prediction near the maximum or minimum value have high fitness. Higher fitness rules are allocated more reproductive opportunities by the genetic algorithm in XCS, and fitness is also factored into the classification vote.
which we can refer to like this in the bibliography:
[1] T. Kovacs and M. Kerber. High classification accuracy does not imply effective genetic search. To appear in the procedings of GECCO 2004.
If you want to cut-and-paste some exact text from the paper, you should quote and cite it:
Kovacs and Kerber said: ``XCS introduced a number of innovations, foremost among them its accuracy-based fitness under which rule fitness is related to its classification accuracy and not the magnitude of the reward it receives as in earlier systems'' [1] p. 2.
However, as I said you should avoid using quotations in your report. We much prefer you to write things in your own words. For example, it would be ok to write:
XCS made many innovations, of which accuracy-based fitness was the most important [1]. With accuracy-based fitness, a rule's fitness is based on its classification accuracy, not on the magnitude of the reward. XCS evaluates the prediction and fitness of each rule in the system. For concept learning tasks, prediction is an estimate of the proportion of inputs matched by the rule which belong to the positive class.
Notice that although all of the above paragraph is based on the paper we only cite it once, at the end of the first sentence. It is reasonable for the reader to assume that the rest of that paragraph is based on the same cited paper, since the whole paragraph is about the details of the same system.
However, this is not a good paragraph, because it follows the original text very closely and does not show a deep understanding of the subject. It would not get many marks.
It is best to not look at other papers at the time that you are writing your report, unless you need to verify something. In other words, you should read the original papers and make notes on their ideas, and then hide them when you are writing your report. This way, you will copy the ideas (and reference them) but you will not copy the exact text.
If you find you are tempted to copy the words, this may be a sign you may not understand the material very well. (Another reason is that if English is not your first language it can be difficult to say things the way you want to.)
The worst case is to write paragraphs like this:
XCS introduced a number of innovations, foremost among them its accuracy-based fitness under which rule fitness is related to its classification accuracy and not the magnitude of the reward. XCS evaluates the prediction and fitness of each rule. Prediction is an estimate of the proportion of inputs matched by the rule which belong to the positive class. Accuracy is a measure of the consistency of prediction. Higher fitness rules are allocated more reproductive opportunities by the genetic algorithm.
That is just a shorter version of the paragraph in the original paper. You can copy that without understanding very much of the original. So it deserves a low mark. More importantly, we also consider it plagiarism because it is an exact copy of parts of the original and there is no reference or quotation marks. If you write reports by cutting-and-pasting parts of the original papers, the least serious consequence is that you will get 0 marks for the coursework.
So:
• Copy the ideas but not the words.
• Anything that can be cut-and-pasted must be cited.
The discussion above is about what is and what is not plagiarism, and to make the distinction clear I oversimplified the process of presenting ideas when I said "copy the ideas". Although we would like you to present the ideas of others in your own words, the ideal is for you to also critically evaluate them, and to synthesise new ideas, using different sources (perhaps including your own opinions). This shows the greatest depth of understanding.
© Copyright for this article belongs to T Kovacs
Source of the article: http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/Teaching/Resources/COMSM3100/howtowrite/report.advice.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Hints for Avoiding Plagiarism
We want reports that copy ideas from papers, and which cite the original paper to give them credit for the idea. If you do not cite the original paper, you are plagiarising their idea.
We do not want you to copy text from papers. If you feel it is important to copy the exact sentence(s) used in the original paper, you can put it in quotation marks and cite the original paper. However, this does not require any understanding so it does not get you many marks.
If you copy the text from a paper but do not put it in quotation marks and cite it, that is plagiarism.
To repeat: we want you to copy the ideas (and cite the author of the ideas) but not the words.
We want you to write things in your own words because we want to see if you understand the material. If you use other people's words we can't tell whether you understand the material.
Here are some examples of what you should and should not do. This is part of a paper:
XCS introduced a number of innovations, foremost among them its accuracy-based fitness under which rule fitness is related to its classification accuracy and not the magnitude of the reward it receives as in earlier systems. For lack of space we do not include the details of the XCS updates, but suffice it to say that XCS evaluates the prediction and fitness of each rule. Prediction is, for concept learning tasks such as those we study here, an estimate of the proportion of inputs matched by the rule which belong to the positive class. Prediction is used in conflict resolution, when matching rules perform a weighted vote on the classification of a data point. Accuracy is a measure of the consistency of prediction. Rules with prediction near the maximum or minimum value have high fitness. Higher fitness rules are allocated more reproductive opportunities by the genetic algorithm in XCS, and fitness is also factored into the classification vote.
which we can refer to like this in the bibliography:
[1] T. Kovacs and M. Kerber. High classification accuracy does not imply effective genetic search. To appear in the procedings of GECCO 2004.
If you want to cut-and-paste some exact text from the paper, you should quote and cite it:
Kovacs and Kerber said: ``XCS introduced a number of innovations, foremost among them its accuracy-based fitness under which rule fitness is related to its classification accuracy and not the magnitude of the reward it receives as in earlier systems'' [1] p. 2.
However, as I said you should avoid using quotations in your report. We much prefer you to write things in your own words. For example, it would be ok to write:
XCS made many innovations, of which accuracy-based fitness was the most important [1]. With accuracy-based fitness, a rule's fitness is based on its classification accuracy, not on the magnitude of the reward. XCS evaluates the prediction and fitness of each rule in the system. For concept learning tasks, prediction is an estimate of the proportion of inputs matched by the rule which belong to the positive class.
Notice that although all of the above paragraph is based on the paper we only cite it once, at the end of the first sentence. It is reasonable for the reader to assume that the rest of that paragraph is based on the same cited paper, since the whole paragraph is about the details of the same system.
However, this is not a good paragraph, because it follows the original text very closely and does not show a deep understanding of the subject. It would not get many marks.
It is best to not look at other papers at the time that you are writing your report, unless you need to verify something. In other words, you should read the original papers and make notes on their ideas, and then hide them when you are writing your report. This way, you will copy the ideas (and reference them) but you will not copy the exact text.
If you find you are tempted to copy the words, this may be a sign you may not understand the material very well. (Another reason is that if English is not your first language it can be difficult to say things the way you want to.)
The worst case is to write paragraphs like this:
XCS introduced a number of innovations, foremost among them its accuracy-based fitness under which rule fitness is related to its classification accuracy and not the magnitude of the reward. XCS evaluates the prediction and fitness of each rule. Prediction is an estimate of the proportion of inputs matched by the rule which belong to the positive class. Accuracy is a measure of the consistency of prediction. Higher fitness rules are allocated more reproductive opportunities by the genetic algorithm.
That is just a shorter version of the paragraph in the original paper. You can copy that without understanding very much of the original. So it deserves a low mark. More importantly, we also consider it plagiarism because it is an exact copy of parts of the original and there is no reference or quotation marks. If you write reports by cutting-and-pasting parts of the original papers, the least serious consequence is that you will get 0 marks for the coursework.
So:
• Copy the ideas but not the words.
• Anything that can be cut-and-pasted must be cited.
The discussion above is about what is and what is not plagiarism, and to make the distinction clear I oversimplified the process of presenting ideas when I said "copy the ideas". Although we would like you to present the ideas of others in your own words, the ideal is for you to also critically evaluate them, and to synthesise new ideas, using different sources (perhaps including your own opinions). This shows the greatest depth of understanding.
© Copyright for this article belongs to T Kovacs
Source of the article: http://www.cs.bris.ac.uk/Teaching/Resources/COMSM3100/howtowrite/report.advice.html
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
How to get better essays while reducing your work and plagiarism-CS
The following information is used for educational purposes only.
Case Study: How to get better essays while reducing your work and plagiarism
Several years ago while working as an external tutor on a distance-learning Masters programme I had to deal frequently with students who had an excessive reliance on textbooks and other sources while writing essays. Some, but not all, of these students did not have English as a first language. We found that even if they could be persuaded to avoid outright plagiarism, many students invariably structured their essays slavishly using the same framework and argument-structure set out in the primary reading resource. The result was a set of essays which were boringly similar, and which demonstrated little evidence that the student had actually assimilated the material let alone had moved on to the higher levels of analysis. By contrast their final exam answers, despite being written in more trying conditions, demonstrated a much higher level of independent exposition, comprehension and analysis.
In addition to the central support provided to encourage students to produce better essays I wrote a short piece which I would send to my tutees with some suggestions. In particular, I encouraged them to have confidence in their ability to write without the crutch of textbooks open in front of them. I suggested they read the source material, make notes as they felt necessary, and reflect on the topic for a time in the light of their reading. Once that process was complete they should then, and only then, attempt to write the essay, placing all the original source material in another room, and relying only on the draft outline and notes they had previously compiled. Despite my entreaties I suspect most of these distance learners were reluctant to forgo the support of the textbooks.
The more I though about this, the more I realised that this was the way I wanted all my students to write essays. I suspect my experience mirrors that of most lecturers in that the essays by my conventional students also tend to rely excessively on the textbook and there is often a suspicion about the extent of plagiarism both between students and from outside sources. Given this, the logical thing to do was to implement an essay writing structure which mirrored the model I set out for the distance-learning students, with the difference that I could enforce compliance with the final step.
As a consequence I abandoned the conventional home-written essay. Instead students were given an essay topic to research several weeks in advance and then on a set day they had to write the essay in a lecture room. Students were allowed to bring in with them one A4 page with an essay plan and notes and this page had to be submitted with the essay. The time allowed was 90 minutes for a full essay or 50 minutes for a short problem-based tutorial essay. I am usually flexible on the time allowed for the full essay but students rarely feel they need more time.
Assessment
The result was vastly better written essays which were clearly thought through, displaying a high level of comprehension and analysis, and vastly superior to the usual regurgitation we receive. The exercise had the additional benefits that the essays were substantially shorter than their home-written counterparts, were easier to mark, and were clearly the students' own work. An independent comparison of essays on identical topics written for conventional weekly tutorial groups in two succeeding years concluded that the essays written under this method appeared to be systematically better. While students were initially very wary and nervous about the process, subsequent feedback via focus groups and questionnaires suggested that a majority of students preferred this process. In particular they felt that they spent less time messing around trying to figure out where to start and that the process forced them to assimilate the material better and to reflect upon it in a more substantial fashion. The fact that the question was identified in advance and that they were allowed to bring in notes meant that the exercise did not have the same level of pressure associated with an unseen examination. The questionnaire scores for 'usefulness of assigned work' rose from an average of 3.4 to 3.8 (out of 5) with no discernible change in variance.
Applicability
This method can obviously be used across a wide range of assessments. Variations on the theme include revealing the essay title only when students arrive to write the essay, allowing student to choose their own essay title within the topic, giving students similar quantitative problems in advance, etc. We have used it for assignments for weekly microeconomics seminars where the teaching assistants said that supervising and correcting 16 assignments (two students per tutorial group) written in one hour in the preceding week took less time than correcting 16 home- written essays. I have also used it for 3rd year major mid-module essays counting towards the final assessment. Over the last year or so we have been attempting to restructure many of our home-based assessments into variants of this sort to improve the provenance of submitted work.
© Copyright for this article belongs to Dr. Cillian Ryan
Source of the article: http://www.economics.ltsn.ac.uk/showcase/ryan_essays.htm
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
Case Study: How to get better essays while reducing your work and plagiarism
Several years ago while working as an external tutor on a distance-learning Masters programme I had to deal frequently with students who had an excessive reliance on textbooks and other sources while writing essays. Some, but not all, of these students did not have English as a first language. We found that even if they could be persuaded to avoid outright plagiarism, many students invariably structured their essays slavishly using the same framework and argument-structure set out in the primary reading resource. The result was a set of essays which were boringly similar, and which demonstrated little evidence that the student had actually assimilated the material let alone had moved on to the higher levels of analysis. By contrast their final exam answers, despite being written in more trying conditions, demonstrated a much higher level of independent exposition, comprehension and analysis.
In addition to the central support provided to encourage students to produce better essays I wrote a short piece which I would send to my tutees with some suggestions. In particular, I encouraged them to have confidence in their ability to write without the crutch of textbooks open in front of them. I suggested they read the source material, make notes as they felt necessary, and reflect on the topic for a time in the light of their reading. Once that process was complete they should then, and only then, attempt to write the essay, placing all the original source material in another room, and relying only on the draft outline and notes they had previously compiled. Despite my entreaties I suspect most of these distance learners were reluctant to forgo the support of the textbooks.
The more I though about this, the more I realised that this was the way I wanted all my students to write essays. I suspect my experience mirrors that of most lecturers in that the essays by my conventional students also tend to rely excessively on the textbook and there is often a suspicion about the extent of plagiarism both between students and from outside sources. Given this, the logical thing to do was to implement an essay writing structure which mirrored the model I set out for the distance-learning students, with the difference that I could enforce compliance with the final step.
As a consequence I abandoned the conventional home-written essay. Instead students were given an essay topic to research several weeks in advance and then on a set day they had to write the essay in a lecture room. Students were allowed to bring in with them one A4 page with an essay plan and notes and this page had to be submitted with the essay. The time allowed was 90 minutes for a full essay or 50 minutes for a short problem-based tutorial essay. I am usually flexible on the time allowed for the full essay but students rarely feel they need more time.
Assessment
The result was vastly better written essays which were clearly thought through, displaying a high level of comprehension and analysis, and vastly superior to the usual regurgitation we receive. The exercise had the additional benefits that the essays were substantially shorter than their home-written counterparts, were easier to mark, and were clearly the students' own work. An independent comparison of essays on identical topics written for conventional weekly tutorial groups in two succeeding years concluded that the essays written under this method appeared to be systematically better. While students were initially very wary and nervous about the process, subsequent feedback via focus groups and questionnaires suggested that a majority of students preferred this process. In particular they felt that they spent less time messing around trying to figure out where to start and that the process forced them to assimilate the material better and to reflect upon it in a more substantial fashion. The fact that the question was identified in advance and that they were allowed to bring in notes meant that the exercise did not have the same level of pressure associated with an unseen examination. The questionnaire scores for 'usefulness of assigned work' rose from an average of 3.4 to 3.8 (out of 5) with no discernible change in variance.
Applicability
This method can obviously be used across a wide range of assessments. Variations on the theme include revealing the essay title only when students arrive to write the essay, allowing student to choose their own essay title within the topic, giving students similar quantitative problems in advance, etc. We have used it for assignments for weekly microeconomics seminars where the teaching assistants said that supervising and correcting 16 assignments (two students per tutorial group) written in one hour in the preceding week took less time than correcting 16 home- written essays. I have also used it for 3rd year major mid-module essays counting towards the final assessment. Over the last year or so we have been attempting to restructure many of our home-based assessments into variants of this sort to improve the provenance of submitted work.
© Copyright for this article belongs to Dr. Cillian Ryan
Source of the article: http://www.economics.ltsn.ac.uk/showcase/ryan_essays.htm
This article comes from UK Student Portal
http://www.uk-student.net
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