Avoiding Plagiarism
Best Practice: Turn over the page and try to remember the main points of what
you’ve just read. Write them down as you remember them.
General relativity combines the time dimension with the three dimensions of
space to form what is called spacetime. The theory incorporates the effect of
gravity by saying the distribution of matter and energy in the universe warps and
distorts spacetime, so that it is not flat. Objects in this spacetime try to move in
straight lines, but because spacetime is curved, their paths appear bent. They
move as if affected by a gravitational field.
Reference:
Hawking, S. The Universe in a Nutshell. London: Bantam Press
This activity was created by Gail Fensom from Southern New Hampshire
University and delivered at TESOL 2006 in Tampa, Florida.
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Pedagogy for using sources – Reading for Stance
Analysis and Summary of a Book Chapter from Understanding Global News
Read the chapter. After you have completed reading, review the chapter up to the
section titled “The approach of the book.” Identify the main claims put forward by the
author. Identify each claim, the support used to justify that claim and any analysis or
comment made by the author about the supporting evidence. When noting down the
claims, support, analysis and comment, DO NOT copy the authors words or
sentences directly from the text. Paraphrase or summarize the information and write
it below. A complete example has been done for you.
1. Claim:
People cannot escape from viewing the world through the perspective of their own
life experiences.
1. Support:
Example: The student map drawings provide evidence of personal/cultural bias.
2. Analysis and/or Comment:
Identification and description of three central characteristics – centrality, volume and
articulation – illustrate the perspective of the map drawer. The map drawers were
predisposed to place their own country more centrally in the drawing, to accentuate its
size and to provide clearer detail about its physical features.
Identification of areas of commonality between map drawers shows a tendency to
give more prominence to politically or economically powerful countries and/or to
countries with which their own country has a close relationship.
Fill in the missing section
2. Claim:
Views of the world are mediated by culture.
2. Support:
Historical Background: Description of the history of mapmaking, descriptions of
modern maps and the identification of various calendar systems.
2. Analysis and/or Comment:
The dominant geophysical and geopolitical descriptions of the world exemplify
Western ethnocentrism.
3. Claim:
The news is also a victim of ethnocentrism.
3. Support:
Example: Deconstruction of a fictional typical news item from the Middle East.
3. Analysis and/or Comment:
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This example introduces ideas or a means of questioning that will be used later in the
chapter and in the book.
4. Claim:
Notions of place or direction are often arbitrary and the fact that they are arbitrary
makes it easier to imbue them with values that are culturally constructed.
4. Support:
Examples: How notions of East and West are not fixed but shift around depending on
who or what is being discussed.
Examples of the connotations and collocations related to the words East and West in
English. Same for North and South. Extension of the same idea to the terms First-,
Second- and Third World. Extension to specific place names, e.g. names of countries,
cities and landmarks.
4. Analysis and/or Comment:
An important use of terms of location is to distinguish between groups of people.
Naming practices and choice of name to refer to specific places reflects key historical
and current viewpoints of power relationships in the world.
5. Claim:
‘Objective’ vocabulary for naming people is also highly subjective.
5. Support:
5. Analysis and/or Comment:
6. Claim:
Journalists, teachers, scientists and others are not free to think and say whatever they
want. Their use of language is subject to both social and psychological constraints.
6. Support:
6. Analysis and/or Comment:
7. Claim:
Reality is complex and as a result we cannot think in terms of there being just one
truth. In fact, there are many legitimate ways of viewing the world and it is important
that we recognize this.
7. Support:
7. Analysis and/or Comment:
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Pedagogy for using sources – To understand
Route One
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•
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Build up to a text with numerous citations
Reading the actual references
This provides opportunities to demonstrate how other writers use sources, e.g.
how they make connections between their own ideas and those of other
writers.
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Example 1
A Warm Welcome? Scottish and UK media reporting of an asylum-seeker
murder. C. Coole.
Lesson Focus: Summarizing with a purpose
Mollard, C. (2001). Asylum: The truth behind the headlines, UK Poverty
Programme of Oxfam GB. Oxford: Oxfam.
This is a 19-page report on a study of the quality of press coverage on asylum in
Scotland. It is an obvious source for Coole whose article reports on press coverage of
a specific asylum-related incident in Scotland.
How did Coole use this source?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Where is this reference located in the article?
What is the overall purpose of this section of the article?
What comes before this reference?
What comes after?
Most of the summary is in Coole’s own words, but one section is a direct
quote? Why do you think Coole chose to quote this particular section?
List the reporting verbs Coole uses in her summary.
Is there much variation in their meaning? Why do you think this is so?
How does choice of reporting verb reflect the cited author’s voice?
Mollard (2001) references in Coole’s article are on pp. 841-842
(This is Coole’s summary of Mollard.)
Conclusions from Mollard’s (2001) analysis of Scottish media reporting on asylum
seekers showed that the majority of press coverage was negative, or even hostile
towards their presence in Scotland. The report states that many articles developed
myths surrounding asylum seekers, based on false assumptions about their negative
impact on Scottish society (Mollard, 2001: 9). Mollard (2001: 16) claims that the
media would then justify and legitimize these viewpoints by printing readers’ letters
expressing similar opinions on the issue.
The key themes that underpinned the framing of the asylum story included:
Only a tiny proportion of refugees are genuine, and the rest are ineligible for asylum.
Asylum seekers get huge state handouts.
Asylum seekers take jobs from local people.
Asylum seekers are taking our housing leaving locals homeless.
Some asylum seekers are more deserving of support than others.
The report concluded:
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. . . in the period covered by this report, much treatment of asylum issues
in Scotland has been characterised by the use of myths and overtly
negative language, the dehumanisation of asylum seekers, racial
stereotyping, marginalization of asylum seekers and asylum supporters,
and ill-informed journalism.
Negative press coverage has been
exacerbated by a lack of commitment by the UK government, the Scottish
Executive, the Scottish Parliament, and local government to presenting
positive information and challenging myths about asylum seekers.
(Mollard, 2001: 26)
Crucially, this negative press coverage helped shape public attitudes towards asylum
seekers. It created a negative climate of opinion in Scotland towards asylum seekers
before any had even arrived. This was something none of the newspapers would
acknowledge when community tensions came to a head with the murder of Firsat Dag
in Sighthill.
Example 2
Racialized ‘othering’: The representation of asylum seekers in news media. O.
Guedes Bailey and R. Harindranath
Lesson Focus: How do these authors use external sources to build and support their
argument?
These are the authors’ research questions:
 How does journalistic practice contribute to a process of ‘othering’ of refugees
and asylum seekers?
 What role do the labels such as ‘illegal’ and ‘bogus’ play in the politics of
immigration control?
 What are the challenges confronting journalists reporting on asylum seekers in the
context of globalization?
Structuring a text and building an argument.
1.
Look carefully at the organizational structure of the chapter. What are the
different parts of the article and what purpose do they serve? Draw a text map.
2.
In which section(s) of the chapter, do you find the most references to external
sources?
3.
What purpose do the authors’ have for citing an external source? Focus on the
references to van Dijk (2000).
 First, identify the section the reference occurs in.
 Second, propose a purpose for the authors’ use of this reference.
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Introduction
Example of reporting of the Tampa
incident in the Australian press.
Paradox of porous borders for
globalization of culture, but
increased immigration control
restricting the mobility of some
groups of people.
Background
Defining the
term ‘othering’.
The study and
discussion of the
study.
Conclusion.
How news discourse frames
asylum seekers.
How the news media create an ‘us
vs. them’ mentality.
An analysis of the representation
of asylum seekers and refugees in
BBC and Channel Four news
programs.
Journalistic practice needs to reorient its discourse to better take
account of the new relationship
between the national and the
global.
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Van Dijk (2000) references
1. (p. 279) Defining a term.
With regard to research on television news and asylum seekers, most studies demonstrate the
persistence of stereotypes similar to those in the press (Hartmann and Husband 1974; Gordon
and Rosenberg 1989: Van Dijk 1991, 2000).
Stating a truism or general consensus in the field or topic area and supporting that with
reference to the literature.
2. (p. 280) Reporting the study.
This research [the author’s study reported in the preceding paragraph] suggests that news
about refugees is often limited to few events: social problems (housing, employment.
welfare); political opinions (politicians commenting on new policies or suggesting solutions);
government policy (new laws restricting asylum seekers access); cultural difference (mostly
in terms of deviance and criminality): public perception (in general based on misconceptions
of welfare support for asylum seekers and refugees and incidents of violence. This list
confirms the findings of Van Dijk's (2000) discursive analysis of British newspapers
representation of asylum seekers. Overall, one could argue that the conclusions drawn by
these studies suggests that there is an 'inferential racism'; at work in the news representation
of asylum seekers which can be seen as a form of 'sanitized' racist discourse.
Linking your study to the work of another scholar in the field.
3. (p. 282) Discussing the study.
The `othering' at the beginning of the news story, along with the term `bogus', however,
combine to racially criminalize a group of individuals, while `weaponry' and 'armoury' invoke
associations with the guarding of national space from foreign invasion.
This both confirms Saxton's (2003) argument, and supports findings by other studies on
television representations of immigrants (Philo and Beanie 1999; Van Dijk 2000), which
point out alarming similarities in the ways the media, in the last decade or so, have been
`manufacturing' news on immigrants.
Strengthening your findings by demonstrating that they build upon the arguments of
others.
4. (p. 283) Conclusion.
Studies such as Van Dijk (2000) and Saxton (2003) suggest that, despite the coverage of a
range of events, both local and international, before and after the events of 11 September
2001, the portrayal of `asylum seekers' is remarkably consistent. Rather than be presented as
people who are trying to escape threat, they are, in most cases, represented as the threat. It is a
representation based on fear of 'them' as a threat to `our' national security and ways of life.
The persistence of such divisive frames contributes to racialized `wedge' politics and to the
justification of policies that approve or deny entry into countries on the basis of narrowly
defined `national interests'.
Introducing a point made by other scholars in order to use it to build your own point.
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Route Two
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Identify one text that is widely cited
Read the source text
Follow it’s trail into other papers
This is a “How to report” approach
Example Activity - How to report on the research of others
Key Articles
Gass, S., Mackey, A., and Ross-Feldman, L. (2005). Task-Based Interactions in
Classroom and Laboratory Settings, Language Learning, 55, 575-611
Foster, P. (1998). A classroom perspective on negotiation of meaning.
Linguistics 19 (1) 1 –23.
Applied
Lesson Focus: How do other authors use Foster as an external source to build and
support their arguments?
Find your author’s research questions:
1. _____________________________________________
2. _____________________________________________
3. _____________________________________________
Structuring a text and building an argument.
4.
Look carefully at the organizational structure of the article. What are the
different parts of the article and what purpose do they serve?
5.
In which section(s) of the chapter, do you find the most references to external
sources?
6.
What purpose do the authors’ have for citing an external source? Focus on the
references to Foster (1998).



First, identify the section the reference occurs in.
Second, propose a purpose for the authors’ use of this reference.
Third, identify the reporting verbs used.
Consider this...

What are the differences between the verbs used?

What factors underlie the author’s choice of reporting verbs?
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
How do the choices indicate the writers’ understandings of Foster’s
views?

What would happen if you changed the reporting verbs used by the
author?
Sample citations for Foster
To date, many of the empirical studies that support the interaction hypothesis have been
carried out in laboratory settings, and some researchers have suggested that the same patterns
may not occur in L2 classroom settings (Foster, 1998). In Foster’s words, her research
call[s] into question the typicality of previous research into the incidence
of negotiation of meaning and the justification therefore of constructing
an SLA theory upon it. . . . teachers can be expected to show little
interest in research that tells them negotiation of meaning flourishes
under narrowly controlled conditions, especially conditions that would
be very unusual in a classroom. (p. 19)
Foster (1998) has questioned the extendibility of laboratory results on negotiation for
meaning in L2 classrooms based on her research findings that negotiation did not occur in the
classroom she studied.
She goes on to say, on the basis of her classroom findings, that ‘‘learners appear to choose
not to negotiate for meaning’’ (p. 20).
In her study of negotiation for meaning in the ESL classroom, Foster (1998) found little
evidence of negotiation in her data and interpreted her findings as suggesting that there is a
difference between laboratory and classroom settings with regard to the amount of negotiation
produced. Because of the small amount of negotiation in any of her tasks, she concluded that
‘‘uncoached negotiation for meaning’’ (p. 19) does not occur in the classroom. However,
other interpretations of Foster’s data may be tenable. In her data, dyads carrying out
information exchange tasks were the most successful in producing negotiation for meaning,
with more of the negotiation incidences in her data occurring in a picture differences task than
in a grammar task, suggesting that it may be worthwhile to investigate task types further.3 It
is also possible that the data used in Foster’s analysis do not represent the full range of
negotiation patterns that would exist in an entire class period. As in other studies of
negotiation (Oliver, 1998, 2000, 2002), Foster examined only the first 10 min of data from
her map task and the first 5 min of data from her remaining tasks. Although data-sampling
practices like this are often necessary for comparability, it is possible that using only the first
5 min of the interaction in the majority of tasks may have obscured other patterns, since
students might be ‘‘warming up’’ during the first few minutes of any activity (Aston, 1986, p.
132, cited in Shehadeh, 2001). It is thus possible that Foster’s results may not paint a
complete picture of the classroom setting.
Of course, classrooms are not as easily controlled as laboratories, and Foster (1998) makes
an interesting point when she claims that if ‘‘language acquisition research wants to feed
into teaching methodology, the research environment has to be willing to move out of the
laboratory and into the classroom’’ (p. 21).
Some researchers point to differences in settings to explain differential experimental results;
for example, Foster (1998) notes that ‘‘the setting of the study within a classroom as opposed
to a venue especially arranged for data collecting, is suggested as a significant variable’’ (p.
1).
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