6 MANAGE
Organizing Information Effectively and Ethically
Now that you have gone through the processes involved to find and evaluate information, the next step is to start working with it. This is where the MANAGE pillar comes in; it focuses on the need to organize information professionally and ethically.
The PIO 101 learning outcome that aligns with MANAGE is:
Students will understand plagiarism and academic dishonesty policies.
In this chapter:
- MANAGE: Understanding and Skills
- Academic Dishonesty
- Intellectual Property
- Unintentional Plagiarism
- Real World Cases
- What is Plagiarism?
- Keeping Track of Bibliographic Information
- Reference Management Software
- When to Cite Sources
- Citation Styles
- Citation Generator Software
- Where to Go for Help
- Ethical Issues and Intellectual Property
- Lerning Activities & Resources
MANAGE: Understanding and Skills
A person proficient in the MANAGE pillar organizes and uses information ethically.
Individuals understand:
- Their responsibility to be honest in all aspects of information handling and dissemination (e.g. copyright, plagiarism, and intellectual property issues),
- The need to adopt appropriate data-handling methods,
- The role they play in helping others in information seeking and management,
- The need to keep systematic records,
- The importance of storing and sharing information and data ethically,
- The role of professionals, such as data managers and librarians, who can advise, assist, and support with all aspects of information management.
They are able to:
- Use bibliographical software if appropriate to manage information,
- Cite printed and electronic sources using suitable referencing styles,
- Create appropriately formatted bibliographies,
- Demonstrate awareness of issues relating to the rights of others including ethics, data protection, copyright, plagiarism, and any other intellectual property issues,
- Meet standards of conduct for academic integrity,
- Use appropriate data management software and techniques to manage data.
Real-life Scenario
Jackie was working on her 10-page research paper at the last minute. It was 3:30 am and her paper was due in class at 9:00 am. She finished the last sentence at 5:15 am, did a spellcheck and voila! Done! Groggy yet awake, she went to class, turned in the paper and waited for her grade. She received an email from her professor that read, “There are some major issues with your research paper that I need to discuss with you. Please see me.” Uh oh. What could it be?
When she nervously went to see him, Professor Muntz told Jackie that she hadn’t cited any of her sources, and because she included a lot of direct quotes in her paper, she was guilty of plagiarism. She received an F on her paper and may be referred to the school administration for academic dishonesty.
Was she really guilty of something that bad? In fact, yes she was. In this chapter we will discuss the importance of managing your information sources and some tips on how to easily and effectively avoid Jackie’s pitfall.
Academic Dishonesty
In this chapter you will learn more about plagiarism, which occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without properly acknowledging its source. Plagiarism is often enemy number one when it comes to academic success involving research and writing. But there are other issues under the larger umbrella of academic dishonesty. Every academic institution has a set of academic regulations that explain what is expected of students. Students are required to make themselves familiar with these rules.
The Marietta College catalog states:
“Dishonesty within the academic community is a very serious matter, because dishonesty destroys the basic trust necessary for a healthy educational environment. Academic dishonesty is any treatment or representation of work as if one were fully responsible for it, when it is in fact the work of another person.”
Examples of Academic Dishonesty include, but are not limited to:
- Copying off another student’s exam;
- Using a “cheat sheet” during a closed-book exam;
- Previewing an exam from a “test” file when the professor does not permit this and is unaware of the file;
- Faking the results of a lab experiment or work;
- Asking for exam content or answers from another student;
- Working in a group or in pairs when an assignment is assigned as individual work;
- Having another student write a paper for you;
- Purchasing or receiving notes from a fellow student;
- Allowing another student to look at your answer sheet during a quiz or exam;
- Attempting to cheat, even if unsuccessful;
- Faking an illness when you’re not sick to postpone a quiz, exam, or handing in an assignment;
- Faking the death of a loved one to postpone a quiz, exam, or handing in an assignment; and
- Purchasing or taking a paper from the internet.
A substantiated case of academic dishonesty may result in disciplinary action, including a failing grade on the project, a failing grade in the course, or expulsion from the College. If a substantiated case of academic dishonesty results in a failing grade in the course, a student who chooses to withdraw from the course will receive a grade of “F.”
Professors are dismayed when they have to talk to students about these issues because, inherently, every teacher wants to believe that his or her students are honest. Unfortunately, plagiarism is so common that educators use plagiarism detection software, such as Turnitin.
Intellectual Property
It is wonderful to have access to information. It empowers us with data and knowledge that leads us throughout our busy days and helps us organize our leisure time more efficiently. GPS devices and mobile phones help us get to unfamiliar destinations. We can find places to eat, to stay, and to get entertainment. All of this information is at our fingertips due to modern technology. We all take advantage of this technology to some degree and use this information to our advantage.
But there is another type of information—not just the kind that provides directions. We seek such information when we are ill and need to look up medical advice. We also seek information when in school, since very few subjects require only the use of a textbook. We need to search for information and then use it in our intellectual work, because every paper or project produced in college is a product of someone’s creativity.
So how should we handle this product of creativity (a.k.a information)? Let’s think about a simple example: apple picking in the fall. It is a popular thing to do, especially here in the Midwest. People go out to the farm, get bags or baskets, gather apples and then line up to weigh them and pay. The farmers’ hard work is being rewarded.
Now imagine a different situation. You worked hard and wrote a very good paper and your roommate just copied a couple of paragraphs and inserted them into her own paper because the topics were related. Was this fair? How were you rewarded for your hard work? Nobody is saying that your roommate should have paid you, as you would pay the farmer for apples. However, she should not use your intellectual work without attribution to you! What she did was an act of plagiarism—you will read more about it soon!
You might publish an article in your college newspaper. This article is your intellectual personal property and you hold the copyright, which means that no one has the right to reproduce all or any part of it (i.e. copy it) without your permission. If your roommate decides to use some information from your article in her paper, she should provide a citation (the information that will help the reader identify and find your article should they decide to do so). If she is using direct quotes from your article, again, she would need to put double quotes around your words and provide information about the author (you, in this instance) to avoid plagiarism. Keep reading to find useful information about avoiding plagiarism.
Copyright and plagiarism are just two aspects of intellectual property that you need to deal with. You have to respect copyright, i.e. the rights of the author and avoid plagiarism. However, there are more aspects to it. Have you heard of patents? If you are planning a career in science and technology-related fields then you also have to learn more about patents. Patents deal with creators’ rights to their invention of new machinery or processes. Plants and design can also be patented. You can find useful information at the United States Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO) http://www.uspto.gov/patents/law/. Trademarks and trade secrets are other aspects of intellectual property that you may have to deal with.
In addition to being aware of plagiarism, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets, you need to be mindful of open access issues, which relate to valuable research data and academic publications posted online for everybody to read. However, you cannot always just use the data from open access sources. You often need to ask the author for permission. Many open access publications use Creative Commons licensing.
There is a lot to learn about using information legally and ethically, but this knowledge will empower you in your academic work and ultimately allow you to succeed. The following examples and tips will get you off to a good start.
Unintentional Plagiarism
Have you ever thought about why teachers and professors seem to spend way too much time urging everyone to be sure to cite all of their sources properly? You’ve heard it all before: footnote this, endnote that, put this in the bibliography, capitalize this word, where are the italics, the commas, periods, hanging indents, yada yada yada! It’s enough to make you give up and just wing it. But hold on a second while you gather your thoughts. Why do your professors always spend so much time urging you to do something that seems to have little practical purpose?
Real World Cases
Students often feel that they are being singled out in regard to plagiarism and academic dishonesty. But that is far from the case. There are numerous examples of scholars and other professionals who have been caught plagiarizing. One such person is Doris Kearns Goodwin, a famous historian who wrote the noted Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln in 2006. She included material in an earlier book, The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys in 1987, from three other sources without citing it, according to an article written by Michael Nelson (381).
Although she has since published other works, her reputation has been tarnished, and people may not take her work as seriously because of this. Unfortunately, as Nelson points out in his article, she is not the only well-known historian caught plagiarizing.
Another example, with a dramatic outcome, is that of Eugene Tobin. He was the president of Hamilton College in New York State, when it was discovered that he had included plagiarized material in speeches he had given over the course of almost a decade. He resigned from his position as the head of this prestigious institution, admitting his guilt (Isserman B12). Other college presidents and administrators have also been caught violating academic trust: if you try a search using the terms plagiarism and college president, you may be dismayed at the number of results.
Like some of the historians Nelson cites in his article, many students fall into a trap when they do research because they fail to mention where they found all of their information. Thousands of students in schools, colleges, and universities are guilty of committing plagiarism, but often they don’t know they are plagiarizing.
Let’s look at plagiarism and how to avoid it, and then continue to some other intellectual property issues you may need to deal with.
What is Plagiarism?
In short, plagiarism is when you use words, images, stories, music, charts or anything from another intellectual work without giving credit to the original author or creator. In the classroom (and in the world of publishing), documenting your information sources is the only way others can tell how thorough and careful you’ve been in researching your topic. If you don’t tell readers where your information came from, they may think that you either made up the information or “stole” it . Failing to cite your sources is plagiarism.
By managing the sources in your papers, you encourage others to do the same and you can be a go-to expert for your friends and classmates when they need help with how to find out how to cite sources properly. The information and advice you impart may help them avoid serious difficulties. Some students truly don’t know that they are doing something wrong when they paraphrase information without citing the information source. They might feel that paraphrasing the words of someone who is clearly an expert on the topic is the best way to write an accurate paper. And because they aren’t quoting it directly, it doesn’t need quote marks or attribution, does it? While the penalties they receive might (and this is a big “might”) be less severe than someone who buys a paper online or copies and pastes big sections of material into their work, the penalties could still be substantial. Raising your friends’ awareness so they won’t face this situation would be a kind thing to do.
Keeping Track of Bibliographic Information
Try this the next time you do research. Every time you find a great article on your topic, collect the following information as soon as you realize you have a helpful resource.
You may not use all of the bibliographic information, it depends on the citation style your professor requires. However, having this bibliographic information for all your resources will help you keep track of everything you find so yuo can locate it again later if needed, and ultimately it helps you produce correct works cited pages and bibliographies.
When you find a journal article, make a note of:
- Author name(s)
- Title of the article
- Name of the journal
- The volume or version number
- The issue number
- The date of the issue
- The name of the database where you found the article
Or, if you find a book, note the following once you think it might contain useful information:
- Author name(s)
- Title of book
- Publisher’s name
- Place of publication
- Year of publication
Or, if you find a website you want to use, collect the following details before you leave the site:
- Author name(s)
- Title of article or webpage
- Title of overall website
- The date of the webpage (if any)
- The URL (or web address)
You might be able to get some of this information with a simple screenshot, but be sure to fill in any missing elements.
This information is often referred to as bibliographic information or bibliographic metadata. It consists of essential information that identifies the information resource used to inform a research project.
As you read and analyze each resource, write down any of the authors’ ideas, quotes, or thoughts you want to use and be sure to write down page numbers, if the source provides them. Also, collect images, evidence and charts you want to use; be sure to write down page numbers for these items, too. When you put your research project together, you will then have all the information you need to create in-text citations, embedded charts or images, footnotes and endnotes, and a page of works cited.
Reference Management Software
Many researchers take the time to gather all of this information before they start writing. However, when they are ready to compile their footnotes or bibliography they can’t find their preliminary notes. It may be the case that some notes are in one notebook, other notes are in a file in their computer and still others are missing entirely.
Fortunately, software has been developed that helps researchers manage their source material. You may have heard of some of these reference management products. Endnote, Refworks, Mendeley, and Zotero, among others, all help manage the information gathering and retrieval process.
In addition to providing one central location for all of your references, these reference managers can
- import bibliographic information directly from a library catalog database,
- provide additional space for personal notations,
- create a bibliography or list of references in a variety of citation styles such as APA, MLA, Chicago, and more.
LEARNING ACTIVITIES & RESOURCES at the end of this chapter
Legacy Library’s website includes a page with links to citation management tools
When to Cite Sources
Now that you have gathered all of your information resources, you need to be mindful about how you used them in your research project. There are some very firm rules about what constitutes plagiarism:
- If you copy a sentence or paragraph verbatim (exactly) from a book, article, website, blog posting, or anywhere online or in print, you must provide information on the author and the publication in which the sentence or paragraph appears. This is known as “citing a source.”
- If you use some of the exact phrases in a sentence or paragraph, even if you are not copying the whole sentence or paragraph, you must cite your source.
- If you use original information that you have obtained from an interview or conversation with someone, you must cite your source.
- If you do not use the exact sentence or phrase but paraphrase it, or use the ideas inherent in the exact sentence or phrase, you must cite your source.
- If you reprint images, maps, diagrams, charts, or tables, you must cite your source.
- If you embed video files or audio files into your work, you must cite your source.
Citation Styles
Citing sources and avoiding plagiarism should always be an author’s intent, but it is easy to get confused about how to cite. Citation styles were introduced in the GATHER chapter, but it is worth repeating that there are many different citation styles. The three styles that are used most often are
- APA (American Psychology Association),
- MLA (Modern Language Association),
- Chicago.
There are no hard and fast rules about when to use each style. Professors often have a preference for one style over another, so make sure that you check with your instructor about which style they prefer.
Citation styles are very specific, so, if you are creating your own citations, it’s a good idea to get familiar with the specific rules of each style. Although the same information is included in each style of citation, the placement of information varies, as does the use of punctuation and capitalization.
Remember that citations for different formats (books, magazine articles, films, etc.) will also require different information. See the Keeping Track section above for a list of what is included in a citation for each type of source.
The following resources are useful tools for all writers and quick links are available on the Legacy Library website noted above.
- Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th edition for APA citations
- MLA Handbook
- The Chicago Manual of Style
Citation Generator Software
Creating properly formatted citations has become easier in recent years with the introduction of reference management software and citation generators. A citation generator is software that will help to correctly format your citations. The above link to the Legacy Library includes free citation generators. These generators are handy to use but they often contain errors so it is important to check the results for accuracy.
In addition to providing one central location for all of your bibliographic information, some of these these products can:
- import bibliographic information directly from a website, library catalog or database
- provide additional space for research notes and personal notations
- manage resources from a variety of databases and websites
- create in text or parenthetical citations for a research paper in a variety of citation styles
- create a bibliography or works cited page in a variety of citation styles
LEARNING ACTIVITIES & RESOURCES at the end of this chapter
Legacy Library provides links to citation generators
Where to Go for Help
Even if you are a very organized person and have diligently collected bibliographic information on all of the information resources that you consulted during the research process, you may misplace essential information on a resource. You may think that since you can’t find this information, you will be unable to use it. But there is another option—consult a librarian. Librarians have comprehensive knowledge about how information is organized and retrieved. They also have a wealth of information resources at their fingertips. Even if you can’t retrace your steps to find the missing data, it is likely that a librarian will be able to help you find the bibliographic information you need. Librarians can also help you determine when and how to cite your work. They may even be able to help you navigate citation generators and reference managers. Librarians at your library are available to help you in person, by telephone, and via email and chat. Consult your library’s website for contact information.
Ethical Issues and Intellectual Property
The MANAGE pillar includes the practice of professional and ethical use of information. Ethical treatment of information assumes that you are treating an author’s rights appropriately and avoiding an act of academic dishonesty such as plagiarism. As a creator of information yourself, you should understand the importance of respecting other authors’ rights and following the general rules set forth in legal documents.
As an information creator, you want to be respectfully treated by others. That is why you should constantly strive to improve your ability to practice fair treatment of other authors’ works, including being cognizant of copyright, patents, and other issues associated with intellectual property.
It is imperative to understand that everybody has to be accountable for their own work and respectful of the work of others. Future scholarship depends on the accuracy and integrity of prior scholarship. That is why, when doing research one must use the information produced by other people responsibly, i.e. provide citations within the text and a list of references at the end of the paper with full citation information that will allow retrieval of the document. Remember what you have learned in this chapter about managing your sources and citation style. If you are diligent about applying this knowledge and careful about giving credit where credit is due, you should have no worries.
Learning Activities & Resources
Resources
Citation management tools and citation generators are available on Legacy Library website. These free tools can assist you in the creation and management of citations in MLA style, APA style, and other formats.
