CORC 1312
Lab #5: Finding Information On-line

This lab willl explore a few techniques and resources for finding information on the web, discuss how to evaluate such information, and learn why it is important to give credit properly in order to avoid plagiarism.

Searching for Information on the Web

We will be accessing the discussions at this site to increase our understanding of and become more sophisticated users of the Internet.

Subject Directories and Search Engines

• The above two services differ in how they accumulate information and how they are organized:
  1. Subject directories are lists of websites organized according to the subject matter or content of the website. Editors maintain and add new websites to the subject directories.
  2. A search engine is a database of websites that a user searches for a particular topic. The database content is assembled by a computer program.
• Each type of service has advantages. It depends on whether the user wants general information on a broad topic (subject directories) or has a specific query (search engines.)
• Subject directories are classified generally as academic subject directories, e. g. Infomine, or commercial portals such as Yahoo!. Academic subject directories are developed to help researchers in particular fields. Commericial portals are for the use of the general public.
• As mentioned above, a search engine accumulates its database using a computer program to find the websites. The components of a search engine are:
  1. A computer program, termed a spider, that follows links to identify new websites and categorize them.
  2. The database, called an index, which contains a copy of every accessible website.
  3. The search and retrieval mechanism that the user employs to find the website where their topic is discussed.
• Search engines are classified into different types:
  1. General search engines - the type of search engine most widely used.
  2. Meta search engines - search in other search engines.
  3. Concept categorizing search engines - which organize search results into topical categories.
  4. Vertical search engines - which search only within a specific discipline, industry or topic.
• Not all information stored in computer databases and on-line sites is accessible by a search engine. Information that is inaccessible because it is password protected, behind a firewall or has no links is referred to as the deep Web.

Search Strategies

• Boolean operators: AND, OR and NOT.
  1. The Boolean operator AND between two words "world AND music" indicates to the search engine that the user wants websites that contain both of the keywords "world" and "music".
  If no Boolean operator is included between keywords, search engines assume that AND is implied.
  2. Many search engines also recognize the OR operator. When placed between keywords, "world OR music", it means that all websites that include each of the words in addition to both words should be returned as results.
  3. The operator NOT, indicated by a minus (-) sign, is used to exclude keywords. That is, the user does not want pages that have the excluded keyword in them.
• Searches can be made more focused by using various filters. For example, Google lets you search for keywords that appear in the title of a webpage. A user can also restrict a search to a specific domain or language.

Evaluating Search Results:

• Consider the source - What are the credentials of the author of the site? Is this site trying to sell you a product?
• Evaluate the content - Are the facts accurate? Does the writing style seem amateurish? Is the information current? Is the topic covered comprehensively?
• This website, Phil Bradley's website evaluates known fake websites for their presentation and realism.
• Even well-respected websites can give malicious or abusive information. Here is one person's, John Seigenthaler, experience with Wikipedia.

Plagiarism

What is plagiarism?

• Using someone else's words or ideas or products without giving credit to the source.
• Sometimes this is obviously "stealing" or "copying" - e.g., copying material out of a book and handing it in as your term paper.
• Sometimes plagiarism is not done on purpose. If you paraphrase material without citing it properly, that is still considered plagiarism. You are using the ideas of the source, whether you are using the exact words or not.
• Even if a resource is posted on the Web, it is still protected by laws of copyright (even without a "copyright" label on it). Copyright protects intellectual property which includes any expression of original ideas including text, pictures, music, software.

Why is it wrong to plagiarize?

• Just plain wrong - you are stealing someone else's ideas or words.
• Not citing a work properly is not fair to the person whose work you are using. He/she deserves the credit for the work that was done.
• You don't learn anything by copying....
• You should be able to take pride in your work and in presenting a report using your own ideas and your own words.
• You may have wrong information. If you report it as your own, you are responsible for the facts. If you cite a source, the source is responsible for the facts.
• If nothing else, be afraid of the consequences - you can be failed in a course or even expelled (or fired from a job, or fined)

Computers, plagiarism, illegal downloads

• "cut and paste" makes it very easy to copy chunks of material.
• downloading music and pictures is very easy and probably nobody would know.
• surfing the web and jumping from site to site makes it hard to keep track of sources

How to give credit properly in order to avoid plagiarism

• You need to attribute a source when you quote from it directly, or paraphrase or even summarize the ideas in your own words.
• Within the body of the report, you use short citations to attribute the source. At the end of the report, you include more information about each source in the bibliography.
• There are various standardized "styles" for citations and bibliographies. Sometimes different styles are used in different disciplines. Regardless of the format of the style, the purpose is to make it clear which work is being referenced (author, title, year of publication) (Not following the style properly is not plagiarism - it's similar to making grammatical errors in a paper... but why not do it properly... The library has resources to help with style.)
• Citations can be "inline" or in the form of footnotes or endnotes.
• A bibliography is a separate page of references at the end of the paper.
• If you are using a source's exact words, you must put quotations around the words, even if you include a citation.
• If you paraphrase or summarize using your own words, you must still include a citation to show that the ideas are not your own.
• If you paraphrase some of the author's words, but not all, you must use quotations around the words that you are quoting directly.

Plagiarism can be detected

• The same technology that makes it easy to plagiarize also makes it easy to detect. Entering a phrase into Google can bring up the original source.
• Software such as Turnitin can be used to compare student papers with standard sources and even with other student papers. For example, it can detect a paper that was copied from a student submission the previous semester. MOSS is software that can be used to detect plagiarism of computer assignments.
• famous cases of plagiarism and their outcomes:
  • University of Virginia expelled 48 students after a physics professor discovered plagiarism by using a search engine. (UVA prides itself on its honor code.)
  • Harvard withdrew admission of a HS valedictorian who plagiarized columns in a local newspaper.
  • The United States Naval Academy demoted a history professor whose book on the creation of the atomic bomb contained plagiarized material. His pay was cut by at least $10,000 a year.
  • Rock musician Andre Young paid over 1.5M in lawsuits over plagiarism.
  • Jayson Blair, NY Times reporter, was found to have engaged in frequent acts of "journalistic fraud." He resigned; two other editors (his superiors) were forced to resign because of the scandal.

Copyright

• Original works are protected by copyright for a certain amount of time after publication, even if they aren't labeled "copyright" (the amount of time varies; it can be up to 120 years.) This includes articles, books, web sites, images, music.
• You are not allowed to photocopy or download copies of copyrighted materials without permission of the author.
• Exceptions
  • Facts that are common knowledge (e.g., George Washington was the first US President.)
  • Some works are in the public domain. Then anyone may copy or use it, but the author must still be credited.
  • US Government publications (e.g., the Constitution)
  • copyright has expired (e.g., works of Shakespeare)
  • author waives copyright (some programmers provide "freeware" or "shareware")
  • Even when works are protected by copyright, the Fair Use Doctrine provides guidelines under which they can be used for teaching and research. The guidelines are complicated and just allow minimal use. If, for example, a College course uses a Course Pak, the cost of the Course Pak includes the cost of paying publishers for the right to copy pages from their texts. Also, if copyrighted images are used on a website, the attribution of the images should be given.

Online Writing Center UMUC Plagiarism Module

Stanford Key to Information Literacy Module 6

Turnitin

plagiarism.org

Plagiarism in the News