Science Essay Writing/Sources and Avoiding Plagiarism
Pre-Class Activity
Searching the Literature and Including Citations and References
Effective Searching
For tips on how to search the literature effectively, to find useful material that could support the development of your essay, and on how to integrate these into your essay, we advise you to read our guides here and here.
Avoiding Plagiarism
Before coming to class, we also ask you to read the following information about plagiarism, so that you know how to identify the different types – and, more importantly, avoid them in your own writing; after all, it is your responsibility to know what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.
To start, review the information in this website link: http://help.library.ubc.ca/planning-your-research/academic-integrity-plagiarism/, before reading more at this one: http://learningcommons.ubc.ca/resource-guides/avoiding-plagiarism/
Activity 1
You should come to class with an idea about how to avoid each of the three types of plagiarism noted here, ready to participate in a discussion about the main issues. Make some brief notes if you feel they will help you.
Identifying Different Types of Sources
Read the following website link to learn how to differentiate between different types of sources and evaluate how appropriate and useful they are for your essay here: http://help.library.ubc.ca/evaluating-and-citing-sources/evaluating-information-sources/ Make sure you read the information about ‘Primary Sources’ and the related link to ‘Learn about finding…’.
You are also encouraged to watch the following Grammar Squirrel videos to help you solidify these concepts:
Activity 2
Make some brief notes on the main differences between primary, secondary and tertiary resources and come to class ready to discuss these.
Searching the Literature
To help you start gathering material for your essay, you should start searching for appropriate literature to support your thesis and the reasons that you are going to develop in the main body of your writing. For a guide on how best to do this, see here.
Activity 3
Before class, find one example of each of primary, secondary and tertiary sources that relate to your essay. On a single sheet of paper, for each resource, write notes on the following, and bring these with you to the in-class session.
- Is this a primary, secondary or tertiary source? Why?
- How might you use this resource in your essay?
In-Class Activity
Searching the Literature and Including Citations and References
For your homework, you were asked to review information about the three main types of plagiarism, and how these can be avoided. You were also asked to read information and watch videos about identifying different types of sources.
Activity 1 (10 minutes)
Take part in a discussion with your classmates and instructor(s) about the three main types of plagiarism. What are they? Have you ever committed any of these before without realizing? How can you avoid plagiarism in your essays?
Activity 2 (15 minutes)
First, take part in a brief discussion with your classmates and instructor(s) about the differences between primary, secondary and tertiary sources. Why are primary sources usually preferred for use in essays and scholarly writing? Are any tertiary sources useful or reliable? Why/why not?
Second, form groups of 4-6 people, and take turns to fill out a table of primary, secondary, and tertiary sources that you each found to support the development of your essays.
When filling out the second column (How might you use this?), think about how the information contained in this source applies to the scientific controversy that you are writing about; specifically, try to outline how you could use this source to provide a reason and evidence to support the thesis of your argument. You should explain this to your classmates as you fill in the table.
| Source | Example | How might you use this? |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | ||
| Secondary | ||
| Tertiary |
Activity 3 (10 minutes)
Take part in a discussion with all of your classmates and instructor(s) about the sources that you found. Are they suitable for inclusion in your essays? Why/why not? How are you going to find more sources to help add content depth to your essays?
Activity 4 (10 minutes)
Work with a partner to try to paraphrase some of the information in one of your sources (preferably your primary source); remember the video you watched before class about integrating sources in your work – it is important in science essays to reword what has been written in a source and then attribute the idea to the author(s) of that source.
For now, try to just reword the key information so that it could be included in the main body of your essay. For a more complete guide to attributing the information to the author(s) of the source from which it came, please read the following if you have not already done so: Integrating and Citing Sources.
It is important that you learn the correct format for including citations in your essay, and for compiling the references list at the end.