Doing Honest Work in College: How to Prepare Citations, Avoid Plagiarism, and Achieve Real Academic Success (review)

Each year, I catch someone plagiarizing in one of my classes. When this happens, I confront the student and one of three things happens: (a) The student confesses, usually explaining how stressed he or she is; (b) The student denies the charges, acting stunned that I would accuse him or her of such a deed; or (c) The student says, “I didn’t know that was plagiarism.”

Charles Lipson, a professor and director of undergraduate studies in political science at the University of Chicago, has written a readable and engaging book that gives students the tools to do honest work in college. Written in a way that students of all levels can comprehend, Doing Honest Work in College provides an overview of academic (dis)honesty, plagiarism, note taking, working in groups, and citing appropriately.

This is a useful book that, after reading, I would recommend for every undergraduate and graduate student regardless of institutional type. Lipson walks the student (and any other reader) through the ins and outs of doing excellent academic work in a variety of settings, including on tests, in group presentations, and in science labs. He spends ample time delineating the excuses that students use to explain cheating or plagiarism and then pokes holes in these excuses—in effect, acting as the conscience of the student.

He then defines plagiarism, providing explicit examples in table format to help students understand plagiarism in every possible form. I found this section of the book to be of great interest because it is crystal clear and, after reading it, students will be hard pressed to say, “I don’t know what plagiarism is.”

Another useful section of the book pertains to note taking. I get the feeling that Lipson really wants students to succeed in an honest way. He provides specific instructions on how to take notes in a way that will not result in “accidental” plagiarism. For example, one strategy that he suggests is called “Q notes,” which involves putting a “Q” and a page number next to anything that one pulls from a source. He suggests getting into the habit of doing this so that you don’t accidentally lift someone else’s words while taking notes. All of us, student or faculty member, could benefit from this strategy.

Also of great use is Lipson’s advice on how to paraphrase. He shows many examples of paraphrasing that steal ideas or merely change a word or two as well as examples of the correct way to paraphrase. Paraphrasing is a skill that we tend to take for granted as professors; however, many of our students do not know how to do it properly.

Although Lipson’s strategies for academic honesty, avoiding plagiarism, and paraphrasing are excellent, the reason I am suggesting that all college students purchase this book is his inclusion of “mini guides” to all of the major citation styles (APA, Chicago, MLA). This book and the inclusion of these guides is a professor’s dream! Year after year, I recommend that my students buy the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association or the Chicago Manual of Style. Students may purchase one of these guides, but they rarely break the binding as they find the books intimidating and unwieldy. As a result, I end up reading papers without a common citation style and dealing with students who say they can’t figure out how to cite anything. Lipson provides students with a “no excuses” guide for citing articles, books, book chapters, interviews, the internet, etc. In addition, he includes citation styles for many different disciplines, including anthropology, biology, medicine, and chemistry, making this book usable by just about any student. Although the first edition of Doing Honest Work in College was published in 2004, this new edition has been updated to include students’ use of Wikipedia, the non-refereed, on...