Jim Moore, Anthropology, UCSD
In the unlikely event that
you're another
teacher and would like to use this, please -- be my
guest!
Research papers are not essays or reports. This handout addresses 4
important
subjects:
Then what is a term paper? Like a report, a library research paper presents
data and
ideas (which are, however, typically drawn from several sources). Unlike a
report, a
research paper presents your analysis and interpretation of data
and ideas
found in a survey of the ... literature relevant to the topic of your paper.
Analysis
is the process of organizing and summarizing data and ideas in order
to answer a
question. Interpretation refers to a discussion of the meaning
and
implications of your answers for the issues, ideas, and problems that your
paper
addresses."
First, research papers are what academia is all about. If you
plan to go to grad school &
on in academia, you have to speak the language.
Law: The whole game is based on research and critical written
analysis presented in a
format that justifies each element of an argument and illustrates where each
came from.
Conservation: Many BioAnthro and EBE majors are interested in
conservation, ecology,
the state of the world. One important way to have input into that state (and
to get jobs in those fields)
is through research papers on topics such as, e.g., rates of species loss under
different land-use schemes
in a tropical forest habitat. Such reports don't often convince people in charge
to act ("Oh, gee, I didn't
realize our oil well was going to do that--we'll tear it right down...") but
they are vital
ammunition in the legal maneuvering that ultimately leads to change. We
hope.
Basically, any profession in which you are
Citation: The most obvious advice here is LOOK AT HOW
THINGS ARE CITED IN THE ARTICLES YOU READ. For clear and
explicit
instruction, see (Parish, 1981).
There are two elements to citing your work: (1) the in-text citation
where, in the body of your
paper, you tell the reader where you got an idea or quotation, and (2) the
reference to that work
in your bibliography. BOTH are important. NOTE: Your
bibliography
should include ONLY items discussed in the text (if you must
list
other things you read but did not cite, do it as a separate "Additional Reading"
section).
In-text citation format varies across disciplines; it is your
responsibility to conform to the norm of the one in which you are writing.
For
most natural science formal writing (and this includes biological
anthropology), the norm is simple: give author and year of publication,
e.g.
(Parish, 1981) or, if you want to emphasize that Parish said it, "According to
Parish (1981)..." is
equivalent. If you are citing a short article that's all you should put. If you
are quoting a
passage in a long work like a book, or citing a minor idea in a book, then give
the page number --
e.g. (Parish 1981: 32). Whether you include a "," or write instead (Parish
1981, p. 32) is not
important, but be consistent.
If you are citing a chapter from an edited book, cite
the author of
the chapter, not the editor of the book!!!
plus some miscellaneous useful information. Click here to skip ahead to
sections on plagiarism and a set of thumbnail examples of research papers that illustrate
the good, bad and ugly of what gets handed in.
2) What are they good
for?
3) How does one locate
and cite references?
4) How does one avoid
plagiarizing references, once found?
1) What are they?
(Parish, 1981: 2-3)
2) What are they good for?
3) How does one locate and cite references?
For example, if you read
Jim Moore's chapter "Inbreeding and outbreeding in primates: What's wrong
with 'the dispersing sex'?" that appears on pp. 392-426 in the book The
Natural History of Inbreeding and Outbreeding: Theoretical and Empirical
Perspectives edited by Nancy Thornhill, and you wanted to say in your
paper that some really dumb things have been written on the subject, you
might write "some really dumb things have been written on the subject,
except of course for Moore (1993)" -- you would not say "except of
course for Thornhill (1993)" unless you were willing to defend the
assertion that all the chapters in the book were as insightful as mine.
(Since this medium isn't great for nuances - yes, this is irony ;-)
Also, if you read several sources that
make basically the same point (good, you can be confident the point is valid!),
do not review
each one in slightly different words; combine them..
Bibliogaphy format also varies, but the main goal remains the same: convey to the reader the author[s], title, source and date of the publication. Publication sources include
de Waal, F. B. M. (1989). Peacemaking Among Primates. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Strum, S. C. & Mitchell, W. (1987). Baboon models and muddles. pp. 87-105 IN Kinzey, W. G. (Ed.), The Evolution of Human Behavior: Primate Models. Albany: SUNY Press.
Kinzey, W. G. (1987), The Evolution of Human Behavior: Primate Models. Albany: SUNY Press.
If you cite a book review, cite the review (not the book!):
The WEB: citation formats for Internet/Web materials (includes email, gopher, FTP, etc) are still being standardized; see NCHS (1996) for some recommendations. Basically, author, title, URL, and date. Note that I strongly disagree with one of the recommendations at that site, namely, that you list only the date of your visit to the site (you wouldn't cite "Marx, 1997" if that was the year you read Das Kapital, would you?). If available, give the last update date; only if that's not available, give your visit date (and identify which it is!)
A last minor point: NUMBER YOUR PAGES !! Geez, like I can't count? It
helps me when I
make comments ("on p. 3 you said X, on p. 5..."). I have actually done
statistics on papers handed in;
students who write papers near the limits of an assignment (too short, too
long) are significantly
more likely not to number their pages than those in the middle of the
suggested range. Hence, as
soon as I see a paper without page numbers, I assume something's wrong
with it--not numbering
backfires.
This is NOT SO for many non-refereed journals or books. In those cases, the decision to publish is made by a single editor or publisher, who maybe asked a friend about the article. I have a ca. 200 page monograph, Original Report Number XV of the Okamura Fossil Laboratory, entitled New Facts: Homo and all Vertebrata Were Born Simultaneously in the Former Paleozoic in Japan. It looks very impressive and scientific. It is written by Chonosuke Okamura, who has discovered that if you look very closely at various rocks, you can find microscopic fossil fish, reptiles, dinosaurs, dragons, and people--all less than 2-3mm long, and dating from paleoaeozoic rocks. With all respect to Dr. Okamura, I suspect that he's been looking through the microscope for too long; "eccentric" is about the kindest way of putting it. Point is, it is published and has an official sounding title and all that. READ CRITICALLY. Journals usually indicate somewhere if they are refereed (e.g., instructions to authors will say "submit 4 copies for review").
TEXTBOOKS are another issue. They are handy for background, but do not use them as sources in research papers. The purpose of a research paper is to teach you to cope with primary sources, with conflicting interpretations of data and with mutually exclusive theories--i.e., to challenge you and make you think for yourself [the procedure is a bit like tossing nonswimmers into the deep end of the pool]. Since textbooks are designed to smooth out all the controversies and difficulties so that you can just "learn the facts," relying on texts would miss the whole point. You can identify textbooks pretty easily; "Introduction to..." or titles that are fields ("Psychology") are giveaways, as are introductions directed "to the student" or review questions at the ends of chapters. If in doubt, ASK.
At the end of my first 2 years here, EVERY time I'd assigned a research paper
to a class, I CAUGHT
SOMEONE PLAGIARIZING. At the start of the quarter I ask, "Everyone
know what plagiarism is
and that you shouldn't do it?;" everyone looks extremely bored and says yea,
don' bore me, mon. Three
months later, one of them is explaining to a dean "But I didn't think that
was 'plagiarism'." So
far the "guilty" students have ranged from freshmen who clearly hadn't a clue
what the problem was, to
graduating seniors (who--eventually--did graduate) who claimed to be
clueless. Hence this handout; I
hope never to catch anyone again (seems to be working, the rate is way
down).
Which raises point number one: it is extremely difficult to establish
intent to plagiarize ("guilt"
in the moral sense) in most cases. On the one hand, this means that swearing
innocence usually works to
convince a prof (me, anyway) that the event was accidental. On the other
hand, because it can be so hard to
know the truth, my standard policy is to pass the student along to the
academic dean of his/her
college anyway. Report'em all, and let the admin sort'em out. "The
recommended minimum
administrative penalties are probation for the first offense and suspension or
dismissal for a subsequent
offense", with "Dismissed for Academic Dishonesty" noted on the student's
transcript (UCSD General
Catalog 1996-97, p. 72).
The key to avoiding plagiarism is simple: correct documentation of any use of
sources. IE, citation format
and when to use it. Parish (1981) is a simple, clear, and useful guide to
citation format. The bookstore
usually carries it (about $3.00), and I have loaner copies; alternatively, just click here to open
the online version in a new window. The following is quoted from Parish
(pp. 21-23).
Now: when writing a research paper on, e.g., the hominid hip joint, it is hard
to paraphrase sentences like
"There are nine joints or sets of joints in the lower limb: the sacroiliac joint,
hip, knee, ankle or talocrural
joint, intertarsal joints, tarsometatarsal joints, intermetatarsal joints,
metatarsophalangeal joints, and
interphalangeal joints" (Shipman et al. 1985). Put it in your own words--
right. And yet, if you put ""
around everything the paper starts to look like an exercise in cut-and-
paste, and the reader starts
asking rude questions like "are you quoting so much because you don't
understand what you read?"
This is known as being between a rock and a hard place, and there is no easy
answer. Nor is there a formula
(that I know of) for the maximum length of a phrase that you don't put ""
around. Discussing the above, it
is pretty clear that you wouldn't come up with the 2-word phrase "talocrural
joint" out of thin air, but in a
research paper you obviously wouldn't put quotes around every use of a
technical term. There are lots of
gray areas, and all I can say is:
2) Plagiarism doesn't give the original author
credit for the
work/idea you are using (that includes the words used to express that
work/idea, which can be a lot
of work themselves). By now you probably know that teachers/academics
don't usually get paid
much: if you want to see how people like me stand in the world, tell your
parents you have decided to
become an anthropologist & study monkeys. They will immediately give you
35 or 40 excellent
reasons for not doing such a dumb thing; at least 20 will be true. Recognition
is about as concrete a
reward as most academics hope for, and so failure to give that recognition
strikes right at the heart
of some very emotional issues for academics. There are practical reasons why
it is bad practice
(below), too.
3) Plagiarism obscures "paper trails"--making
it hard to see precisely
how an idea was developed, and upon which data it was based. This can
cause all sorts of trouble.
For example: say Ernie (1988) is writing about the human fossil record, and
steals a section from Frank
(1972), without citing Frank. You read Ernie's article, which states
confidently that we have
absolutely no idea how tall our ancestors were, 2-3 million years ago. Now,
you, as a careful student,
know that partial skeletons Lucy (found in 1974) and OH62 (found in 1986)
both give a pretty good
idea of stature. Obviously, Ernie in 1988 should know about these famous
fossils, so what is going on?
Is he saying that Lucy and OH62 are not ancestral to us (a position that some
people believe)? Are
you safe in concluding that, in your paper? You easily could spend hours
trying to work out this rather
odd passage--at least, if you cared enough (& most academics do)--all because
Ernie didn't state that
he was basing his conclusions on a 1972 paper (which of course clears up the
problem). Bottom line:
plagiarism can make life more difficult for readers of the plagiarised article.
4) A final problem with plagiarism is related,
but affects the
plagiarizer. Some things get published that are just plain dumb; others are OK
when published but
then completely outdated by a new theory or discovery a few years later.
Using the example above:
even supposing the plagiarism is not detected, since Lucy is pretty well-
known for a fossil, Ernie comes
out of this looking like a real idiot, an incompetent twit who just invents
"facts" out of the air. If he'd
cited Frank (1972), he wouldn't come off nearly so badly: we'd perceive that
he didn't read enough,
but at least he looked into the issue, recognized it's importance, and
accurately presented the 1972
state of our knowledge.
Example #2: That monograph on microfossil humans, dragons, and other
animals found in various
rocks by C. Okamura (see under "research papers" above). It is either a
terrific spoof, or the guy
pushes the term "eccentric" boldly where it has never gone before. If you
stumbled onto it and
plagiarized from it for a paper on human evolution, I would fail you on the
spot. I mean, this stuff is
off the wall. If you said exaclty the same thing but cited Okamura, I would
know that maybe we
should talk about your credulity, but that in fact you had tried the
assignment and simply stumbled
onto a joker in the academic deck; undergraduates aren't supposed to know
the field so well that they
can avoid all those. So citing sources protects the writer--not only is
credit going where
credit is due, but so is "blame."
Parish, S. M. 1981. The Overworked Student's Practical Guide to Writing
Term Papers for
Anthropology (and related subjects). Regents, University of California.
Shipman, P., Walker, A. & Bichell, D. 1985. The Human Skeleton.
Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
So remember why the good lord made your eyes,
And don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, PLAGIARIZE, PLAGIARIZE !
Only, please, to call it "research."
--Tom Lehrer
Back to contentsWhat is plagiarism?
"Plagiarism is the use of someone's work without acknowledgement--as if it
were your own. If in your term
paper you were to use someone's data, ideas, or words, without documenting
that use with a citation, then
you would be guilty of plagiarism" (Parish, 1981).
Parish goes on to point out that poor note-taking is one of the major causes of
accidental plagiarism; you
scribble something on a piece of paper, then weeks later you try to remember
where it was from, or whether
what you scribbled is a verbatim quotation or not. TAKE GOOD & CAREFUL
NOTES.
And here is the same passage plagiarized almost word for word in a student
paper. (The paper is hypothetical. If a student did this, he'd find his
graduation getting pretty hypothetical too.)
Only a few, very minor, changes have been made; essentially it consists of
Bastide's words. Here is an example of how to use this passage properly:
It is clear that Bastide is being quoted, so a single citation at the end
of the passage does the trick. Remember: it is still plagiarism even if
you put someone's thoughts or data into your own words (in a paraphrase or
summary) and do not acknowledge that use with a citation. Plagiarism
occurs whenever a citation is required, but is not given, whether for
quotes or paraphrases, ideas or data.
Why is it wrong?
1) Cheating of any sort places honest students
at a disadvantage, since
most courses are graded on some sort of curve. Whether this disadvantage is
unfair or not is culturally
determined; you may have heard of serious problems at several universities
in India, where students
rioted (major riots, people injured if not killed) over the right to cheat on
examinations. Such riots do
have a certain logic: when cheating is common, students at a university that
tries to crack down are at a
great disadvantage on any standardized national test. Have you ever missed
an "A" by a couple
points? Ever think it might be because someone else in the class cheated &
shifted the curve?
Think. Logically, there are just a few possible alternatives:
Hopefully the EBE majors at least can see what I'm on about--the
analogy with genetical evolution of
altruism is pretty obvious. For those who are thinking, "Yeah--and I can
show mathematically that
selfish genes will invade every time," let's discuss the naturalistic fallacy. If
you want to have the
ethics of a molecule, fine; don't be upset if you get treated like a molecule
then (there are some
interesting ideas about the evolution of moralistic aggression that seem
relevant here...).
From an anonymous course questionaire, Fall 1989 :
What aspect of the course do you think was the most important/
educational?
Last update: 5 Jan 1999