Home Schooling with Writing.com

         In preparation for a research unit (next on my agenda here), it is important that we teach our children about the concept of plagiarism, and how to avoid it. I found an exceptional article on the subject,

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but it is written on too sophisticated level for many students. You,the parent/teacher, should read the article yourself. Check out links on any points you are unclear about. If you have no junior or senior high students, then I want you to do step one of the following assignment.

8th-12th grade:

Step one:

Read the following article:

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Then write a summary of the article at a level a young child could understand. This will be hard. Do it anyway. Putting things in your own words is an excellent way to reinforce learning. Explaining something to a child is an excellent way to understand complex ideas. Remember to NOT PLAGIaRIZE the article in the process!!! This must be your work, not just a few changed words. Also, be sure to reference the original article. For our purposes here, list the item Id.# and the author's Writing.com portfolio address. Ask me if you don't know how.

Step two:
Give the re-write of the article to a younger sibling. If you have no younger siblings, give it to a parent or older sibling. They need to learn this stuff, too, and it helps to make it simple for them. Answer any questions they may have about what you have written. If they ask a question you can't answer, try checking out some of those excellent links in the original article.


1st-7th grade:

Read the simplified version of the plagiarism article. Talk to your mom about what that means when you are looking up stuff to write a report. Ask questions.

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