Distance Education

I’ve had a few questions lately from students who are unsure about plagiarism and want to know “the rules” to avoid it. The rules change slightly from college to college and the Center for Teaching’s FAQ has links to each college’s policies. The UIOWA libraries’ What you should know about electronic resources (pdf) provides some general guidelines and defines plagiarism as,

“…presenting the ideas or words of another without crediting the source.”

More useful, I think, is a philosophy to help you decide when and how to give credit for other people’s ideas. Regardless of the intricacies of APA or other citation styles, let your readers know which ideas are yours and which come from another source. The style guides merely give you a framework for that. There is no shame in using someone else’s ideas - the shame is in claiming those ideas are your own.

• As you write your paper and set down your ideas, keep in mind where your support comes from.
• Every time you use an idea from someone else, whether you are quoting directly or expressing that thought in your own words, mention who or where the thought came from.
• Every time you mention someone else’s though, follow the guidelines of whatever citation style you are using to direct your readers to that original thought.

Do you know what plagiarism is ? How have you handled gray areas in using other people’s thought?

Let us know in the comments.

Dan the Librarian

On a practical level, most of you probably don’t think about the library as long as we provide the resources and services you need efficiently. You trust us to do our jobs well and we try to meet and exceed your expectations. That is as it should be, but you should know that we have some guidance and are not just making this up as we go along.

At the 2008 American Library Association convention the Association of College & Research Libraries approved the updated Standards for Distance Learning Library Services. The important part, as far as I’m concerned, is in the first paragraph - “Academic libraries must, therefore, meet the information and research needs of all these constituents, wherever they may be.”

The Standards are a useful baseline and I believe that the University of Iowa Libraries meets them. However, whether the Standards say so or not, we’re going to continue to provide the best service we can tailored to the needs of the students who use us - “…wherever they may be.”

Within the limits of copyright law and understanding that we won’t write your research paper for you, are we meeting your needs? Is there something we can do better?

Let me know in the comments.

Dan the Librarian