Identifying sources
This page describes how to identify sources in the core courses of the Interaction Design programme at the IUAV University of Venice.
PROBLEM
It is very important that writers, in their texts, identify phrases or sentences which they have copied from another writer. Otherwise they can be accused of plagiarism (plagio).
Unidentified copying remains plagiarism even if:
• The copied material has been slightly modified: that is, not rewritten in the writer’s own words; and/or
• The copied material is open-source (Wikipedia, for example). Avioding plagiarism is about honesty, not about protecting copyright.
In an academic exam, plagiarism is a serious accusation. It suggests that the plagiarist intends to get a university degree by fraud – by concealing the fact that some or all of the text, submitted for exam as his or her own work, was in fact written by another person.
In universities, discovered plagiarism usually means failure in the exam; it may also mean that the degree is later cancelled. Interaction Design core course teachers normally stop reading – and fail – any text containing plagiarism. This is because it is useless to continue assessing text which may not be written by the student.
Plagiarism also means that the plagiarist need not absorb – enough to interpret them critically – the original writer’s ideas or information. And learning to interpret other people’s thoughts critically and independently, and to express those assessments in one’s own words, is a primary aim of university education.
SOLUTION
Students need not always be original. But they should try not to copy long extracts (‘quotations’ or ‘citations’) from other sources. If they do copy an extract, they must:
• Identify the extent of the quotation by enclosing it in quotation marks (‘ ’), and
• Identify the exact source of the quotation by attaching a ‘citation tag’ to it.
CITATION TAGS
If the source is printed, the citation tag shows:
• The author’s name (Stanley Knife)
• The publication date (2007)
• The publication’s title (The Cutting Edge: Interaction Design in Venice)
• The publication place (New York)
• The publisher (Rizzoli)
• The page(s) on which the quotation can be found (109).
If the source is digital, it shows:
• The website’s title (HowStuffWorks)
• The web page title (‘How Municipal WiFi Works’)
• The page’s URL (http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/municipal-wifi1.htm)
• The date when you consulted the site (1 October 2007).
All this information allows the reader to continue the writer’s research.
CITATION TAG FORMATS
Insert the tag immediately after the quotation. You can:
(1) insert the full information:
... A celebrated historian records that ‘in 2006 the first students entered clasVEM’s Interaction Design programme’ (Stanley Knife. 2007. The Cutting Edge: Interaction Design in Venice. New York: Rizzoli. 109).
... It is reported that ‘most WiFi hot spots in coffee shops and other locations have a hub and spoke configuration’ (HowStuffWorks. ‘How Municipal WiFi Works’. http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/municipal-wifi1.htm. Consulted 1 May 2007).
Or (2) insert an abbreviated tag:
... A celebrated historian records that ‘in 2006 the first students entered clasVEM’s Interaction Design programme’ (Knife. Cutting Edge. 109).
then put the full information (but not the page number) in your sources list:
Knife, Stanley. 2007. The Cutting Edge: Interaction Design in Venice. New York: Rizzoli.
Or (3) insert a superscript number:
... A celebrated historian records that ‘in 2006 the first students entered clasVEM’s Interaction Design programme’.4
then put the full or abbreviated information (with the superscript number) in a footnote or endnote:
4. Knife 2007, 109.
and put the full information (but not the page number) in your sources list.
The exact typography of these tags is not important, provided it is consistent. There are many ways of doing them. Most important is to identify the quotation clearly, and give the reader enough information to find its source easily.
Remember: It is not enough only to list the sources used for the research. Each copied quotation must be enclosed in quotation marks and its exact source identified, including page number or website page.
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