MPhil General Research Methodology 25 Oct 2010 - Academic Writing Classnotes

Notes by Madhushree S Bhat, MPhil. English Studies.

• Works Cited, Reference and Bibliography are commonly used words while writing a thesis.
• Works Cited and Reference mean one and the same. Reference is the term used in the APA (American Psychology Association).
• Bibliography: This is a list of books which may have helped you in writing the thesis directly or indirectly. It also contains works cited.
• While writing a thesis we lay down our arguments on certain strong foundations. If half of the thesis is based on that has already gone into the field of research, the other half is built referring to the work already done.
• During research we have to be careful not to plagiarize. If a thought or ideas is taken from another author and you try to pass it off as your own without giving credit to the original author it is plagiarism. The word plagiarism comes from the Greek word-plagiarius meaning to kidnap. The consequences of plagiarism are many. The chances of plagiarism detection are higher with UGC is requesting all universities to put all the thesis submitted to them on INFLIBNET
•  Plagiarism may be intentional or unintentional.
• Avoid unintentional plagiarism.
• Presenting someone else’s idea as your own or paraphrasing it and then, presenting it as your own also constitutes plagiarism. 

E.g
“The lack of distribution of food grains caused Bengal famine”-Amartya Sen.
If it is reproduced as “In fact the main reason for the great Bengal famine was lack of proper distribution of food grain,” It amounts to plagiarism.

To avoid plagiarism the same idea could be presented thus giving credit to the writer. E.g. “According to Amartya Sen the main reason for the great Bengal famine was lack of proper distribution of food grain.”
If it is exact words then use quotes“     ”. E.g. According to Amartya Sen “The lack of distribution of food grains caused Bengal famine.”

• The principle of Citation is: Move the idea forward with minimum distraction and maximum precision.
• One should never plagiarize as it is injustice to the person who formulated the idea. Apart from that one’s thinking as well as his/her personality remains unexposed.

Work Cited

Pinto, Anil. "Plagiarism and Citation Styles." Christ University,          Bangalore. 25 Oct. 2010. Lecture.