Extracts
Below are extracts from the 2nd e-newsletter (4th issue in all) of the English Club. The choice is the editer’s. For the whole newsletter, email him at: hashasm@gmail.com .
Expecting your comments and contributions.
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The Plague of Plagiarizing from the Internet
By Ilham BOUTCHICH
Not all thieves lurk in dark streets and parks. Some just sit in front of their computers, copying, pasting and printing. The Internet may seem another helpful source of information, but it misuses ‘the intellectual property’ to a great level. The problem with the majority of students nowadays is that they resort definitely to plagiarism to carry out their research, without being aware of the fact that not all what is on the Internet can be trusted. Although many people claim that using somebody else’s ideas and opinions without attributing them to is a form of theft, they certainly do not think of it a serious crime.
Before the invention of the Internet, students were engaged in ‘prehistoric’ methods of academic dishonesty or what we call nowadays ‘Plagiarism’. Students could copy from books, magazines and newspapers; then long came the internet, which provides tons of information that can be downloaded and copied at a touch of a button. Many websites offer pre-written term papers for any subject that a student may think of. Some of these papers are free, some can be purchased and they are ready for submission with bibliographies and references.
So, what are the forms and shapes of plagiarism? Before dealing with this issue, a primary definition of the term ‘plagiarism’ sounds plausible. Macmillan English Dictionary defines plagiarism as: ‘The process of taking another person’s work, ideas or words and using them as if they were your own’. It takes many shapes and forms:
Using another writer’s ideas without proper citation. When you use somebody else’s ideas, you must state from where you got the information by using footnotes or other means of indication. By doing so, you are going to distinguish your own ideas and judgments from those you borrowed from other sources. In case your ideas are the same with those of the writer you consulted, you should acknowledge that you both came up with the same judgments.
Citing you source but reproducing the exact words of a printed source, without using quotation marks, makes it appear as if you have paraphrased rather than borrowed the author’s exact words.
Using another writer’s words without proper citation. You must place quotation marks around words or expressions you borrowed from a writer, to indicate that they are not your own terms.
Borrowing all or part of another student’s paper or using someone else’s outline to write your paper.
Handing in a work that is not your own (i.e. paying somebody to write the paper for you) is considered as a breach of the academic honesty.
Obviously, the Internet has become more and more a favourite place for students to visit when searching for sources to use in research papers. This is mostly due to the wide and relatively simple access that the Internet provides to all kinds of information. Why traveling all the way to remote libraries when it is so much easier to open up a browser window and head to ‘Google’? While the Internet can be a wonderful source and is a unique and versatile way of sharing information, not everything one comes across on the free area of the Internet can be trusted. There are several reasons for this of course. For one, the Internet tends to cover subjects more superficially than the printed literature, without the depth and context provided by a book. Most internet sources also lack explicit citations to other sources for reference. Such citations are an important part of articles found in professional journals for example.
Another important reason delineating why the Internet should not be the primary source of information for a term paper is its ephemeral nature. The printed literature (i.e. books) provides a permanent record stored in libraries. Information on the internet, however, has no permanency and is more like ‘the shifting sands of a beach’.
The question to conclude with is ‘how to avoid plagiarism’ ? Plagiarism can be avoided by reading the source material and taking notes and never copying word for word. This must be applied to the internet too. A good researcher never uses a plagiarized source into his own term paper. As an added disincentive to cut and paste from the Internet, remember that, your professor may suspect that a phrase is not yours. Plagiarism from the Internet is very easy to catch!
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Fiction
Step Son
By Mohamed CHAHBI
Tahra was going to have a baby. All her muscles were trying to have the baby born. But unfortunately she was so thin, she couldn’t get the baby born. Moha took her to hospital, which was empty as usual. No first aid was given them. He called a nurse; she was trying to help her, but in vain. She told Moha that he must take her to the central hospital in order to have a caesarean. The central hospital was very far and the ambulance was out of order, so he took a taxi, which he found with difficulty though expensive. Tahra couldn’t bear suffering and pain; she screamed highly, and it was the last scream to shout. The baby got out Tahra, the nurse slapped it to make it breath, and she handed it to its father. It was a boy.
Tahra became pale, calm, and breathless. She passed away. She was a pious and good woman.The nurse advised the father to keep his son in an orphanage, but Moha rejected the idea. He insisted on keeping his son in his charge whatsoever the circumstances might be. Two weeks later, the father couldn’t bear the burden of caring for the child. He asked his neighbour Amal to help him; she was a friend of Tahra. She accepted. Six months later Amal’s family decided to leave the town, so she had to hand the baby back to its father, and she advised him to get married to woman who could take care of Karim, the name given of Moha’s son. Moha didn’t welcome the idea.
“I will never get married. Though Tahra died she is still alive in my heart; I can’t forget the wonderful moments I spent with her,” he thought to himself before Karim’s scream awakened him to reality. Moha tried to placate his son’s screams and sobs. He prepared the milk, washed the clothes. “Oh my God, I can’t bear it; I suffer a lot; I must find some solution to this problem; I must!”
Moha took his son to a kindergarten, yet he found that the babies there are maltreated; he returned home with his son, all sadness, fed up with the situation.
“I must get married, but can I find the suitable woman?” He marched to his friend Ali in order to help him end this problem. Ali advised him to marry a girl from his own village. He asked his uncle for his cousin’s hand. He saw in her the right wife to attend to his Karim. “Yes of course my son,” the uncle tapped him on the shoulder. He asked the girl’s opinion. A man like Moha is rare to find though quite poor. His chastity could compensate for his poverty.
Moha got married to his cousin Mina; he had asked her to take care of his son,and she couldn’t say no. She would prepare the baby milk, wash its cloths. Karim is now four years. Karim called Mina “Mama”, he loved her so much; he didn’t know that his mother died the day of labour, the day he was to be born.
One year later Mina met Ftou when she was shopping. Mina invited her for tea; Ftou accepted the invitation and accompanied Mina to her modest house.
“Welcome”
“Thanks”
They were discussing life’s problems. Suddenly “Mama” came out. It was Karim coming on the wrong time.
“Who’s he?” Ftou said.
“H is my son”
“Your son! But you’re too young”.
“ I mean my step son”
“Your step son!
“Yes I married a man who has got a son with an woman before me. She is dead now. He asked me to take care of his son and I accepted”
“But why don’t you have a son of your own who would take care of you when you are old?”
“I think Karim is my son though,” Amina retorted.
“Ha! but he is not yours, when he grows up, he will never help you, and he will take the whole heritage, don’t forget that, too.”
“But I had never beaten him; I deal with him as if he were mine.” She said innocently
“So you’re free, I just advise you.” Mina couldn’t understand Ftou’s speech; she thought that she wanted just to destroy her life. That same night she waited for her husband to come in. Once in she started:
“Moha I want to have a baby of my own”
“What?!”
“ I tell you that I want to have a baby”
“But why?”
“You know, Karim isn’t a baby of my womb,. Moreover, I want to have other babies”
“Please Mina, Karim loves you indescribably. He calls you “mama” though you aren’t, and once pregnant you will neglect my son.”
“Yes he is yours not mine; I want to have mine, I’m not a nurse, I’m a wife. Besides, it is my right. Please Moha, I want to have this experience, please,” she implored with a kind of defiance.
“Yes it’s your right, but who will take care of Karim?”
Moha noticed that Mina insisted to have a baby. Karim had heard what Mina was saying. He cried a lot. That moment he began the inquisition about who his mother was: “Ma! Mina, aren’t you my mother?” He spoke with a childish sad tone.
Mina was angry: “yes I’m not, your mother was Tahra. She died when she was in labour to give birth to a baby, which is you!”
Amina shoched Karim, and her behaviour with him started to take another turn.
Two months later, Amina found herself where Tahra was some years ago. It was the central hospital.
“Congratulations Ssi Moha,” meaning Mr Moha, “your wife is pregnant,” said the only doctor available in the whole remote district.
“Oh! Thanks God, thanks a lot, doctor,” sang Moha joyfully to the doctor, with a sort of fear about Karim hidden in a corner in his white heart. Moha embraced Mina lovingly.
“You will have a baby”
But the doctor called Moha later to tell him something that is not to Mina’s liking: “your wife has a heart trouble, so the childbirth threatens her life; she must forget about having babies. She will never be able to support it, otherwise she would risk her life.” Amina heard the entire doctor’s speech; she refused the idea of miscarriage.
“Please Mina, your life is more important”
“ But I don’t understand why I have no chance!” she started crying never intending to stop it.
“You have Karim; he is your son also,” the kind Moha attempted at assuaging her bitterness.
“I want to have a baby, can’t you understand that! But you, men, are heartless!”
“You may die, and who can take care of your baby, absolutely another woman, do you prefer that?”
Mina had no choice. She accepted to miscarry. Back home, they found Karim waiting for them. Mina embraced him forcefully as a mother can do to her sole son, thanking God for having Karim beside her.
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