I took the yarn from the basket and stuck it in my pocket. In hindsight, she probably noticed the large ball like shape protruding from my pants; she didn't say anything to me though. Success!! I made it home with my treasure! What did I do with it? I did what most any 6ish year old girl would do. I turned it into a doll. Just in case you were wondering, this is how.
It only took a few minutes to make my doll. I was happy with the results, but only for a while. This is wrong. All wrong! What if my grandma needed that yarn and I took it and she doesn't even know. I shouldn't have taken it. And now, I can't even give it back to her; I have already cut the yarn up. It has to be a doll. I can't roll it back up. WHAT HAVE I DONE!?!? I felt terrible! I had to tell my mom; Ooh the tears flowed.
The next time we went to grandma's house. I gave my grandma the doll I had made, and said sorry for taking her yarn without asking. She gave me a big hug and said it was alright. She said that I didn't have to worry about asking to have something because she would have given it to me if I had asked. She kept the yarn doll in her basket and said that I could come and play with it anytime I liked.
It's mostly a good memory. I learned that day about stealing and how bad it made me feel. I was brought up to work hard for the things I have, and to not take things that are not yours. As I got older, I also learned that taking other peoples ideas and claiming them as your own is stealing.
Unfortunately, plagiarism is easy to do even if it's unintentional. I have found some very helpful hints on the UNC writing center website.
1. Citation, Citation, Citation. You can never have too many citations! This means that you did your research and you are knowledgeable about the subject you are writing about. You are able to use your own ideas and weave them into the ideas of others to make a fluid concept.
2. Take good notes. This is a big one for me. I tend to do most of my research online and just bookmark a bunch of sites. It can get really confusing, and I sometimes forget which article I found my information on. By taking good notes, you can eliminate all of the confusion. Jot down what you want to remember, the page number, and what cite, book, or article it came from. Yes it does take a little bit more time, but it is better than an F because you forgot to cite someone else's work.
3. Be careful paraphrasing doesn't become plagiarism. Changing a few words, inserting synonyms, or rearranging the sentence is too close to the original. In fact, I would say it's not original at all. This can be taken care of with good note taking as well. As you are taking notes, ask yourself some questions, try to think about what the author is trying to explain, why do that think it is important, and so on. Thinking this way helps you to start to develop your own ideas
"Moral of the story: When in doubt, give a citation" -UNC plagiarism handout.
"As you partake of the world's bill of fare,
that's darn good advice to follow.
Do a lot of spitting out the hot air,
and be careful what you swallow." -Dr. Suess