Working Habits that Work
SOURCE: http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/pages/habits.html
1. Take complete and careful notes. Whatever note-taking system you use, make sure to distinguish carefully between any passages copied directly from your source, information from your source, and your own ideas and comments. When copying passages verbatim from a source, make sure to use quotation marks and to be precise about recording the page number(s) of the source. You will save yourself much time and aggravation if you make your notes accurately and completely the first time around. Students often get into trouble because their notes are incomplete or confused, and they run out of time to go back to check their sources.
2. Keep all of your notes until after you have had your graded papers returned to you. If any question is raised about your work, it is much to your advantage to be able to document your notes and preliminary drafts of your papers.
3. Be scrupulous in drafting and checking your papers to make sure all words borrowed from your sources are placed in quotation marks or indented and that all ideas and necessary information that require citation are followed by a footnote.
4. If you do all of your work -- from note-taking to drafts to final version -- on a computer, be especially careful. The ease with which computer text can be copied and pasted, moved around, and edited can make the work of writing a paper quicker and more efficient, but it can also lead to serious errors. Make sure whatever notes you have taken from sources are clearly marked. If you move a phrase, a sentence, or a paragraph from your notes into your paper, be certain that you also move any quotation marks and citation. Create your footnotes as you go -- for both verbatim quotations and for information that must be attributed. Too often quotation marks and citations can get lost or confused in the shuffle; don’t rely on your memory or incomplete or cut-up note files at the end of the process.
A good practice is to keep computer files distinct and to label them well. Don’t start drafting your paper at the beginning or end of your note file; create a new file. Rather than cutting and pasting from note files to your paper file, use "copy and paste" instead so that your original note files remain intact. Be sure to keep track of the file names of the various drafts of your papers so that you don’t confuse them in the final rush to print and submit your work. Sloppy work habits and the pressure of deadlines are not valid defenses if you are charged with plagiarism or another violation. It is also a good idea to print out a hard copy of your work periodically, and to back up your files on diskettes, in order to avoid a crisis if your computer fails. Develop a sensible plan to keep track of your work on the computer and stick to it.
5. Understand the difference between primary and secondary sources, but know that you must cite quotations, ideas, and information from both. Most high school students learn how to quote from a primary source. For example, if you are writing a paper about The Great Gatsby or the United States Constitution, you know to put any quotation from that primary source in quotation marks. Too often, however, high school students are not trained to use secondary sources, such as an essay of literary criticism on Fitzgerald’s novel or a scholarly book on the Constitution. Students in disciplinary hearings sometimes claim that they did not know that ideas or words from secondary sources require citation, or that they thought such material was common knowledge. However, the principle is clear: you must always distinguish your own words and ideas from the words and ideas of others, whether in primary or secondary sources.
6. Do not rely on a single secondary source when doing a research paper. Try to find multiple sources that provide varying perspectives and draw different conclusions on your research topic. Your paper will be better if you respond to a variety of sources, and you will avoid any possibility of depending so much on a single source that you can be charged with plagiarism.
7. Whenever possible, show all of your work in problems sets that require calculation.
8. Be sure you understand the instructor’s expectations and guidelines for collaborating on assignments such as lab reports, problem sets, and research projects. If the rules for the course are not explicit, do yourself (and your fellow students) a favor and ask the professor to clarify them.
9. Be extra careful to verify the accuracy or validity of information obtained from electronic sources. Be sure to cite such sources just as you would printed sources.
10. If you are unsure whether or not to cite a source, ask your instructor. If that is not possible, follow the basic rule: when in doubt, cite.
11. Be your own hardest critic. Reread your papers to see how much is your own and how much is quotation or paraphrase from primary or secondary sources. If your paper is replete with ideas and quotations from your sources, are you confident that you have found some idea or thesis of your own to argue? If there are almost no citations, have you done sufficient reading and research to be confident in your information and analysis?
12. Be sure you understand your instructor’s expectations for your work. Are you supposed to be summarizing a source or analyzing it? Are you expected to go beyond the assigned readings? Are you expected to use two sources? Six?
13. Be cautious about using notes belonging to other students, even if you are in the preliminary stage of writing your own paper or doing your own problem set. Keeping others’ ideas distinct from your own is an important way to protect the integrity of your own academic work and to avoid unintended plagiarism.
14. If you do not understand an assignment or need additional time to complete it, ask your instructor. Students occasionally, out of desperation, make the wrong choice by plagiarizing their sources rather than requesting an extension.
15. This last piece of advice is the hardest of all to follow: give yourself enough time to do your work well and carefully. Proper citation takes time. Avoid last-minute rushes when the pressure of the due date may tempt you to get sloppy or cut corners you know you shouldn’t just to finish. At 5 a.m. after an all-nighter, you may not be thinking clearly enough to make the right choices about properly acknowledging your sources. Not to mention that you are hardly likely to be doing your finest work at that hour.