Learning to Avoid Plagiarism

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Original Text: No measure is perfect, but the estimates of value-added and other “growth models,” which attempt to isolate the “true effect” of an individual teacher through his or her students’ test scores, are alarmingly error-prone in any given year.

Original source: Ravitch, Diane. The Death and Life of the Great American School System. New York: Basic Books. Print.

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Example 1: Plagiarize the original text by copying portions of it word-for-word:

No measure is perfect, but the estimates of value-added and other “growth models,” which attempt to isolate the “true effect” of an individual teacher through his or her students’ test scores, are alarmingly error-prone in any given year.

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Example 2: Plagiarize the original text by paraphrasing its structure too closely, without copying it word-for-word:

An alarmingly error-prone measure, estimates the value-added and other “growth” models.” These measures attempt to isolate the “true effect” of an individual teacher through his or her students’ test scores.

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Example 3: Plagiarize the original text by paraphrasing its structure too closely, and include a citation. Even though you cited it, paraphrasing too closely is still plagiarism.

An alarmingly error-prone measure, estimates the value-added and other “growth” models.” These measures attempt to isolate the “true effect” of an individual teacher through his or her students’ test scores (Ravitch 270).

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Example 4: Properly paraphrase from the original text by restating the author’s ideas in different words and phrases, and include a citation to the original source.

Ravitch notes that, although some of the measures taken to identify a teacher’s success within her student’s test scores are considered to be effective, there are other measures that may have a margin of error (Ravitch 270).

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Example 5: Properly paraphrase from the original text by restating the author’s ideas in different words and phrases, add a direct quote, and include a citation to the original source.

Ravitch notes that, even though some of the measures taken to identify a teacher’s success within her student’s test scores are considered to be effective, there are other measures that “are alarmingly error-prone in any given year” (Ravitch 270).

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Works Cited

Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System. New York: Basic Books, 2011, pp. 270-71.

One thought on “Learning to Avoid Plagiarism”

  1. This exercise demonstrates that you correctly understand key differences between plagiarizing versus properly paraphrasing sources. But take another look at your first sentence in examples #2 and #3, which is a sentence fragment that doesn’t make sense. Although it does not affect this assignment, always re-read your sentences before submitting them.

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