Communication Skills Lectures

1. Plagiarism, Rephrasing,
Reviewing, Editing
Lecture # 8
EN-223 Research Project and Presentation

2. Lecture Outline
• Plagiarism
• Paraphrasing
• The elements of effective paraphrasing
• Techniques for paraphrasing
• Types of Review and Edit
• Self-Review
• Peer Review
• Authoritative Review

3. Plagiarism
• Plagiarism means taking ideas/words from a source without giving
credit (acknowledgement) to the author.
• Plagiarism is as a kind of theft and is considered to be an academic
crime.
• In academic work, ideas and words are seen as private property
belonging to the person who first thought or wrote them.
• It’s important to
• understand the meaning of plagiarism
• learn how to prevent it in your work

4. Plagiarism (cont.)
• The main difficulty that students face is that they are expected:
(a) to show that they have read the principal experts on a subject – by giving
citations
(b) to explain these ideas in their own words and come to their own original
conclusions

5. Plagiarism (cont.)
• There are several reasons why students must avoid plagiarism:
• Copying the work of others will not help you develop your own understanding
• To show that you understand the rules of the academic community
• Plagiarism is easily detected computer software

6. Avoid plagiarism
Summarizing and Paraphrasing
• This will demonstrate your understanding of a text to your teachers.
• Paraphrasing involves re-writing a text so that the language is substantially
different while the content stays the same.
• Summarizing means reducing the length of a text but retaining the main
points.

7. Paraphrasing
• Paraphrasing means changing the wording of a text so that it is
significantly different from the original source, without changing the
meaning.
• Effective paraphrasing is a key academic skill needed to avoid the risk
of plagiarism:
• it demonstrates your understanding of a source.

8. Paraphrasing (cont.)
• Paraphrasing and summarizing are used together in writing.
• Summarizing reduce information to a suitable length
• Paraphrasing restate the relevant information
• For example,
• Original
• There has been much debate about the reasons for the industrial revolution happening
in eighteenth-century Britain, rather than in France or Germany.
• Paraphrased
• Why the industrial revolution occurred in Britain in the eighteenth century, instead of on
the continent, has been the subject of considerable discussion.

9. Paraphrasing (cont.)
• Note that an effective paraphrase usually:
• has a different structure to the original
• has mainly different vocabulary
• retains the same meaning
• keeps some phrases from the original that are in common use
e.g. ‘industrial revolution’ or ‘eighteenth century’

10. Three Techniques for paraphrasing
(a) Changing vocabulary by using synonyms:
• argues > claims
• eighteenth century > 1700s
• wages > labor costs
• economize > saving
• Note: Do not attempt to paraphrase every word, since some have no true
synonym (e.g. demand, economy, energy)
(b) Changing word class:
• explanation (n.) > explain (v.)
• mechanical (adj.) > mechanize (v.)
• profitable (adj.) > profitability (n.)

11. Three Techniques for paraphrasing (cont.)
(c) Changing word order:
Original
the best explanation for the British location of the industrial revolution is found
by studying demand factors.
Paraphrased
A focus on demand may help explain the UK origin of the industrial revolution.

12. Types of Review and Edit
• A document should never be sent to the final readers until someone other than
the author(s) reviews it.
• A critical reading is needed to uncover those ever-present mental slips that seem
invisible even after a double check.
• Type of Reviews
• Self-review – review someone own document
• Peer review – review by colleague/friend/sectary
• Authoritative review
• The approach recommended here is to do a self-review and a peer review on all
reports.
• Formal research papers will get an authoritative review from publication editors.
• The more important the document, the more it should be reviewed.

13. Types of Review and Edit
Self-Review
• This is your opportunity to look back on and document your past
performance.
• Reasons for review by others is that the author will miss defects
because his or her brain can skip over its own mistakes.
• You know what you wanted to say, and this is what you read, even
though some words may be missing.

14. Types of Review and Edit
Peer Review
• Your first “other person” review could be by a trusted coworker,
secretary, or friend with reasonable writing skills.
• Ask
• “How does it read?”
• Are there any misspellings, mechanics problems, or grammatical and
typographical errors that stand out?
• If you fix these, you should have a document that is relatively
acceptable to your readership.
• This type of review does not take a significant amount of time.

15. Peer Review - Proofreader symbols

16. Peer Review - Proofreader symbols (cont.)

17. Peer Review - Proofreader symbols (cont.)

18. Types of Review and Edit
Authoritative Review
• A critical reading by an expert is an authoritative review.
• An expert in writing will provide suggestions on
• Format
• Style
• Grammar
• Flow
• Logic
• Sentence structure
• If a technical expert reviews a document, he/she will suggestions on
technical content.
• Technical papers often receive both.

19. Reviewing Example

20. Reviewing a Formal Report: Checklist

21. Reviewing a Formal Report: Checklist

22. Reviewing a Formal Report
Review Comments

23. Reviewing a Formal Report
Review Comments (cont.)