Reflection Report：Ethical Use of Information

#CURI

Based on draft CURI workshop Ethical Use of Information

Ethical Use of Information: Understanding Plagiarism and Copyright in Research

Introduction:

This workshop is trying to provide some methods and guidelines about ethical use of information. The key point is understanding plagiarism and copyright in research. During this workshop, the instructor gave us some suggestions on how to avoid plagiarism, especially when citing. The instructor also provided some latest technology with the right way to cite GenAI content.

Description of the workshop

  1. The general way to detect plagiarism in PolyU is using Turnitin.
  2. There are serval ways to avoid plagiarism.
    1. Combining paraphrase with citing: Students need to restate other's ideas based on their own understanding and present in their own words. Paraphrasing should be used when wishing to refer to ideas or sentences in the source text.
    2. Combining direct quote with citing: Whenever wanting to quote another's words without any changing, the author should use quotation marks. This case mainly happens when citing a defination, theory or laws.
    3. References: At the end of the article, the author need to list all the sources cited in the work using a standard style, like IEEE and APA.
  3. For the last section, the instructor has provided some general ideas about how to avoid plagiarism. This section provided some strategies to paraphrase.
    1. It is better to fully understand other's ideas before paraphrasing.
    2. Using synonyms to replace all words unless generic. Some generic words like "world", "science", or "food" are not necessary to be replaced by its synonyms.
    3. 3.Modifying the arrangement of the sentence can be beneficial. Convert clauses to phrases and vice versa.
    4. Besides the structure of the sentences, people may also change the voice from passive to active, or from active to passive.
  4. Methods to cite the content that generated by AI. Most citation styles do not provide specific guidelines for citing GhatGPT or other GenAI tools. Unless there are specific instructions, students should refer to the official websites of the citation styles and the Referencing Guides developed by the ELC.
  5. Plagiarism and copyright infringement are two distinct concepts that often get confused. Plagiarism involves passing off someone else’s ideas or words as one’s own without crediting the source, which is considered academic dishonesty. On the other hand, copyright infringement refers to the unauthorized or prohibited use of works covered by copyright law, which is a legal offence. While both actions are frowned upon, they carry different consequences and are dealt with in different spheres: plagiarism in the academic world, and copyright infringement in the legal realm.

Personal reflection

It is very important for students and researchers to maintain academic integrity. Non-plagiarism as well as proper citation is an important part of maintaining good academic integrity. In academia, we must respect the intellectual work of others, which means that we cannot sneak another person's ideas or words as our own without attribution. This behavior is known as plagiarism and is a sign of academic dishonesty. At the same time, we need to cite the work of others appropriately. If we use someone else's ideas or findings in our own research, we need to make it clear in the literature. This is not only a sign of respect for the original authors, but also for the readers, as it lets them know how our ideas were formed and what our research is based on.