Avoiding plagiarism,
self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical
writing
That rewritten version is definitely plagiarized. The author has merely added or substituted a few words at the beginning of each sentence, and copied verbatim the remainder of the sentences. Notice that although none of the sentences in the rewritten paragraph are identical to their counterparts in the original, the rewritten version is still deemed as an instance of plagiarism because the author has simply appropriated too many phrases from the original. Thus, the attempted paraphrase falls way short of the requirement for the original text to be thoroughly modified. This is a clear-cut case of plagiarism. See the following tables for comparisons between the original paragraph and its rewritten counterpart.
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ORIGINAL VERSION REWRITTEN VERSION
“This
study examines whether workers of S. invicta are able to assist their
mothers in colony usurpations.
First we tested whether [queens] of S. invicta are better able to usurp
colonies to which their daughters have moved. Second, we tested whether the effect of daughters on
usurpation success is due to familiarity with the queen or to genetic
relatedness. Aggressive behavior
during these usurpation attempts was observed to determine if the presence
of familiar or related workers influenced the aggressive response toward
either the resident queen or the queen attempting usurpation.” A
study was conducted to examine whether workers
of S. invicta can assist their mothers in colony usurpations. The first hypothesis tested was whether queens of S. invicta are better able to
usurp colonies to which their daughters have moved. For the second hypothesis, the
researchers tested whether the effect of
daughters on usurpation success is due to familiarity with the queen or to
genetic relatedness. The
researchers observed aggressive behavior during
these usurpation attempts to determine if the presence of familiar or
related workers influenced the aggressive response toward either the
resident queen or the queen attempting usurpation.
* Red colored, underlined strings of text indicate that they have been taken verbatim from the original paragraph.
- Blue highlighted text indicates that it has been appropriated
from the original paragraph with a change in the order of the words or
phrases.
