Many students commit plagiarism in the preparation of their thesis proposals as well as theses. Even one sentence copied from another source without acknowledgement constitutes plagiarism. It is permissible to copy sentences, but only when it is put in quotation marks and referenced to an appropriate source. For some reason, despite repeated explanations, students do not seem to understand this, and cut and paste material from different sources without acknowledgment. Any proposal that contains plagiarism will be REJECTED without evaluation. It is SIMPLE to avoid plagiarism: JUST CITE THE SOURCE from which you have taken the material.
Example 1: Proposal States That:
Quasi-experimental designs can also be designed around multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional programmes without constraining or influencing implementation. Propensity score matching addresses selection bias due to observable characteristics by matching intervention communities to observationally similar non-intervention communities.
Comment: EXACTLY the same sentences appear in Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Generalized Causal Inference by William R. Shadish, Thomas D. Cook and Donald T. Campbell. This sentence is pure plagiarism, since the source is not cited, and it is just cut-and-paste from source, without any acknowledgement.
NOTE that just one sentence which is copied from another source is ENOUGH for plagiarism.
Example 2: Proposal States That:
Quasi-experimental designs can also be built around multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional programmes without changing implementation. Propensity score matching handles selection bias due to observable characteristics by matching intervention communities to observationally similar non-intervention communities.
Comment:
Here the student has tried to avoid plagiarism by changing a word or phrase here and there. THIS IS STILL PLAGIARISM.
Example 3:Proposal States That:
Quasi-experimental designs can also be built around multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional programmes without constraining or influencing implementation. Propensity score matching addresses handles selection bias due to observable characteristics by matching intervention communities to observationally similar non-intervention communities. A quasi-experimental design is one that looks a bit like an experimental design but lacks the key ingredient -- random assignment. With respect to internal validity, they often appear to be inferior to randomized experiments. But there is something compelling about these designs; taken as a group, they are easily more frequently implemented than their randomized cousins. See Shadish et. al. (2000)
Comment: If we cite the source, then it is not plagiarism. The student cites the source for the first two sentences, Shadish et. al. (2000). However, this is STILL plagiarism. The source is not cited clearly. From the way it is written, it is not at all clear that the first two sentences have been copied from Shadish et. al. Now we show how to avoid plagiarism:
Example 4: Proposal states that
Shadish et. al. (2000) write that “Quasi-experimental designs can also be designed around multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional programmes without constraining or influencing implementation. Propensity score matching addresses selection bias due to observable characteristics by matching intervention communities to observationally similar non-intervention communities.” A quasi-experimental design is one that looks a bit like an experimental design but lacks the key ingredient -- random assignment. With respect to internal validity, they often appear to be inferior to randomized experiments. But there is something compelling about these designs; taken as a group, they are easily more frequently implemented than their randomized cousins.
Comment: Now the two sentences which have been copied directly have been put in quotes and authorship has been attributed to Shadish et. al. THIS IS CORRECT AND NOT PLAGIARISM.
NOTICE HOW SIMPLE IT IS TO AVOID PLAGIARISM: JUST PUT IT IN QUOTES AND CITE THE AUTHOR.
Sometimes we want to change the quote a little, for some reason. In this case, we can say:
Example 5:
Shadish et. al. (2000) write that Quasi-experimental designs can be used for both multi-sectoral and multi-dimensional programmes.
Comment:
Here we have extracted some information from the book, and are putting it in our own words. Still, the source is cited, but now the relevant phrase is NOT in quotes because it is not a direct copy or cut and paste. WHENEVER information is taken from some source, it is best to CITE the source and indicated that information has been taken from that source. When some information is GENERAL KNOWLEDGE and easily available from MANY different sources, then only it is possible to not cite the source. For beginners who cannot tell the difference, it is ALWAYS possible to be safe, just by citing the source. There is no harm in citing the source, and failing to cite the source can often be plagiarism. If sentences are directly copied, then it is ALWAYS plagiarism, even if the information is well known.