Post-secondary education can be a challenge to anyone. To survive, one must have the knowledge to understand what it takes to make it work. This survival guide will assist the student in areas of upholding academic honesty, conducting successful library and internet searches, developing effective study skills, managing time wisely, and setting and achieving goals.
First, one must uphold academic honesty. Plagiarism is a serious and unethical action. Webster's Dictionary defines plagiarism as "to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own; use (another's production) without crediting the source (Webster, 2007)." The use of another author's work is acceptable as long as one gives credit to that author through proper citation. If one makes a conscious effort to not plagiarize someone else's work, it will not happen. By reading someone's work, a person can usually tell if they have copied the information from another source or if it is truly unique.
Students in the incubation room at the Woodbine Ag...
Elementary school students in Chiang Mai
Engraving of Noah Webster, from the frontispiece o...An instructor can tell if a student is guilty of plagiarism. During the course of a semester if a student is struggling with day-to-day assignments and at the end of the class they turn in an immaculate paper, chances are it is probably not their own work. A suggestion is that a person reads through all their resources and takes notes throughout. When it comes time to write their paper, a person should use their own thoughts and ideas to convey the same meaning. One can still use specific references to another individual's work but they have to make sure to document it as such. Some students do not realize that even if information is restated using different words, the sources still need to be cited.
Second, conducting research online is different from conducting research in a traditional library. Conducting research online is...