School Tips: What is Plagiarism?

What is Plagiarism? 

Most of us are guilty of this at one point in our student lives both maliciously or not. It may range from copying one's ideas directly, not citing a source, or it may also take the form of technically not just citing the source properly as in APA or any other standard format for citing your sources.

Just recently when I read about articles on plagiarism, I even said to myself, "Andami ko na palang nagaang plagiarism sa buhay ko." This thing with us college students is that we commit these violations because we are not aware of it. But again even our law states, "Ignorancia legis non excusat" - Ignorance from the law excuses no one.

So we, college students must be aware of what plagiarism is, how we commit it and most importantly, how to prevent it.

Plagiarism is the act of using other's work as your own.

According to Collegeuniversity.suite101.com, here are some actions that may be considered plagiarism:

• Putting one's name on someone else's paper. This is the most obvious example. Whether it came from one of the many college essay plagiarism websties that buy and sell term papers or from a friend, this is plagiarism.
• Putting one's name on someone else's phrases. One doesn't have to steal a whole paper for it to be plagiarism. Sometimes students get lazy and throw in a few paragraph or sentences from a book or website. If the original author is not credited for the writing, it's plagiarism.
• Putting one's name on something that's paraphrased. A paraphrase is a rewording of a phrase, sentence, or paragraph that essentially says the same things. Paraphrases of someone else's work need to be cited just as a quote would. It's still someone else's idea, even if the words are changed.
• Taking someone else's idea. This happens in academia sometimes. A graduate student has a great idea, and a professor steals it and writes a paper using the student's idea. Bad bad bad. It doesn't matter that words weren't stolen; it's the stealing of an idea that makes this a violation of intellectual property law.
• "Recycling" your old material. Tweaking the contents of one assignment to meet the requirements of another assignment is both plagiarism and against college policies. (And professors talk to each other about their students' work, so don't try this!) There are some cases where a student wants to expand upon an idea from another paper in another class, and that's okay as long as you discuss this with the professor and get permission, and as long as it's truly an original work.
• Failure to put a quote in quotations marks, or providing incorrect information about where a source came from. These are sloppy errors that are probably not malicious. But technically they are still plagiarism. Learning how to cite sources correctly is an important skill! if you do not know how to do this well, talk to a professor or your college writing center.

I also have found several free online Plagiarism detectors over the net which lets you compare your text to other pages of the web. One of which is www.articlechecker.com which allows you to paste your text and automatically finds similar phrases on other websites. I really recommend this one, I even found someone plagiarizing our research paper with this website.

Other free online plagiarism detectors include Tynt, Crossrefme, and Duplichecker.

Here are some tips to avoid plagiarism by eHow.com:

• Determine if the information is common knowledge. If the information has been cited in five other sources, it's safe to assume that it's common knowledge and does not need citation.
• Make quotations and citations your friend. If someone said those exact words, quote them and give them credit. Credit should also be given to artwork.
• Quote professionals, but provide your unique opinion and viewpoint.
• Do not copy and paste. This makes it easier for you to plagiarize. Instead read over the sentence a few times and try to put it into your own words.
• Put quotations marks around words or phrases you do not want to change and credit the source.
• Check your paraphrasing against the original text to make sure it is not the same.
• Do not purchase essays. You do not know where they came from or if they are reliable.

School Tips: 8 Tips to become Sucessful by Nico Mangalonzo

Who doesn’t want to be successful? In every field you wish to pursue, in every ordeal you undertake, and every path you follow, who doesn’t want to be successful? The thing is, SUCCESS is a birthright. Everyone deserves to be successful. Everyone CAN BE successful.

I recently attended a talk entitled GOALS: Going for Outstanding Achievements in Life, a seminar sponsored by the UST Nursing Central Board of Students as part of their Tulungan Tayo Katoto project.

The a talk was given by Mr. John Christopher Mangalonzo or we fondly called, “Kuya Nico”. In his talk, he shared some success tips that can help us achieve our goals. Here are Kuya Nico’s 8 Rules to Become Sucessful:

Rule #1: Set Clear Written Goals

Goals and Dreams are entirely different. Though they may both have desirable outcomes, goals involve of effort and commitment. The thing with goals also is that they may be achieved. That is why if you want something, you should make it your goal, not your dream.

Also, setting goals makes you achieve things faster. Be sure to put them into words since there is power in writing, the more you write your goals, the more you think about them subconsciously. The more you think about your goals subconsciously, the more goal-focused you’ll get.

Remember! In writing your goals, they should be SMARTER.

      S - Specific
      M - Measurable
      A - Attainable
      R - Risky
      T – Time bound
      E – Exciting
      R – Rewarding

Kuya Nico also pointed out the Law of Attraction – like attracts like. Therefore, everything that we have right now is not just mere coincidence, but we attracted them.

Rule #2: Plan

In achieving success, we must set our plan or course of action to guide us on how we will achieve our set goals. We have to keep in mind that planning should be a step by step process.

Same with goal setting, our plans should also be SMARTER.

"If you fail to plan, you plan to fail."

Rule #3: Identify your emotional why

The thing that keeps us people from changing is actually ourselves. By nature, men are creatures of comfort. We confine ourselves to our comfort zones, a thing that keeps us from achieving what is greater beyond.

Changing is never on the how, it is on the why. As such, Emotional why is the reason why you want to achieve your goals, it is the reason why you hunger for what you really desire. We make our decisions based on emotions, then defy it afterwards using Logic. This is the reason why finding you emotional why is very important because it empowers and fuels you nearer to your goals.

Rule #4: Have a positive self image

How you see yourself is what you will actually get in life. Similar to the law of attraction where like attracts like, having a positive self image will definitely determine your success.

According to Bo Sanchez, “Who you are does not count, it’s what you are that determines your sucess”.

Rule #5: Check your beliefs

Habits are a thousand times more powerful than our decisions. There are actually 2 types of habits: Habits of Action and Habits of Thought. In Habits of Action, it compasses our daily habits, our actions that are subconscious. These are the habits we think about least often. Habits of Thought are the habits of thinking, it includes our belief system which is partly cultural and varied.

At times, these beliefs are one of the hindrances to our success, here are some of them that we should avoid:

1. Fate – Success is not pre-written. We are the captain of our ships.

2. Victim – Circumstances don’t restrict you, its up to you how you’ll respond to these hindrances.

3. Elite – Everyone can be successful. Success is a birthright

4. Money is evil – Money is not evil; Love for money is.

5. Impossible – Everything is possible! Thing outside your comfort zone, think beyond!

6. Scarcity – there’s always something for everyone. You just have to find what’s yours.

7. Unworthy – Everyone is created equal. You are no less than worthy as others.

The good thing with habits is that they can be changed or possibly even reversed. How? Let’s examine first how a habit is formed. Habit is formed by constant repetition plus emotional force. Emotional force is something that makes you want doing something, a possible potentiator for a habit.

In Kuya Nico’s talk, he cited smoking as an example. He shared that peer pressure may be a possible emotional force of smoking addiction and with constant repetition of the act, it already becomes a habit.

Rule #6: Declare your success

It gives you the feeling of affirmation. Declaring your success involves 3 words: I am __________. Try saying it to yourself every now and then. Kuya Nico said that we should repeat saying that for 21 days. I have yet to try that one.

Rule #7: Focus and Refocus

He shares that obstacles and challenges are a normal part of life. Determining your success is based on where you put your focus on. If you focus on challenges, you get greater challenges. If you focus on the solution, you somewhat lighten the challenge.

Rule #8: Take action

People fail because they don’t take action. Here are some habits that keep us from doing so:

1. Fear/Doubt – just do it

2. Manana Habit – just do it now

3. Laziness – have accountability; take responsibility

Keep committed to your goal. Focus!

Rule #7: Choose to be successful!

At the end of the day, it’s all up to you if you want to be successful. Bad news is that whatever you want to do in life if you want to fail or too lazy to take action, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE. The good news is that YOU ARE ALSO RESPONSIBLE, you can change the way you see life, change your actions, your beliefs.

If I were you, I’d choose to be successful. How about you?

School Tips: Converting Raw Scores to Percentage Scores (Transmutation Table)

In college, raw scores are converted to their percentage equivalent. The  highest percentage you can get is a hundred percent and the lowest you could possibly get is 65%. The passing score is 75%, anything lower than that means that you failed.  Therefore, computing for the percentage grade is very essential especially if you're aiming for honors.

 The transmutation table is a matrix of raw scores with their corresponding percentage score based on the total number of items, it also serves as a guide for professors to get our raw score's percentage equivalent.  Although sometimes, profs may use different ways of computing the percentage aside from the transmutation table given to them.

Here's one of the formulas my professor shared with us which I find really reliable:

Raw Score - the score you got, your actual score

Total no. of points - total number of items in an exam

Base score - the passing percentage. ex. Base 65% means that you should get a score of 65% of the total number of items just to get a passing grade.

Percentage - the percentage equivalent of your raw score

Let's say for example I got 67/100 in my long exam. The base score is 65%. So...

Some professors may require you to round up your percent score. So if you got 78.55, i may round up my score to the nearest whole number which is 79. But if for example the decimal I got was below 0.5, say for example my grade is 78.45, I may not round up my score, thus my percent score will be 78%.

School Tips: 17 Powerpoint Presentation Guidelines

1. Remember to use strong, contrasting colors to easily grab the attention of your audience. Use dark font color in light background and light font color in dark background. This is one basic rule you ought to know before using a power point presentation for your reports, and sadly, a lot of people still don’t apply it. I have seen something like sky blue font color in a yellow green background during one our reporting assignments and I tell you, it was painful to eye.

2. Remember that what may look good on your computer may be unreadable in the classroom. Always do test your .ppt file beforehand.

3. Stick with a single background.

4. Do not use pictures as backgrounds. Although photographs can be powerful, using them as backgrounds is a different story. First it distracts the audience. Second, it makes your text unreadable.

5. Do not over-decorate your presentation with graphics or style, unless you actually intend your presentation to be a picture slideshow. A few excellent graphics are better than many poor ones. Remember to use hi-res images as much as possible as not to make your presentation look like el cheapo.

6. Bullets are focal points to highlight your ideas, use them instead of paragraphs. Bullet points should always be left-aligned, never centered.

7. Do not place graphics at the center, except when stressing the picture itself. By doing this, you leave little room for text.

8. Do not use ALL CAPS, except for titles. Also, capitalizing the first letter of every word makes it more formal while capitalizing only the first letter of the clause makes it less formal.

9. Avoid fancy fonts. It distracts the audience.

10. Use only a few fonts and keep them consistent all throughout.

11. Keep font size consistent and uniform for the title, headings and captions

12. Avoid using italics. it makes your text difficult to read

13. Use the bold feature to make your point stand out.

14. Make font size readable. I suggest using size 28 as your smallest size.

15. Remember the Rule of 6: Six words per line, six lines per slide. This is to avoid information overload which actually makes your audience distracted and downright bored.

16. Use builds and make your words concise as much as possible. Now it is your job, the presenter to do the elaboration.

17. Make slide transitions uniform all throughout.

Schoop Tips: Professor Ranks

So you're about to enter or already in college aren't you? Now, for the longest time since you first started schooling, what do you call your mentors? Yes, you regarded them as "Teachers" or simply "Maam/Sir" without even recognizing their academic acievements, for all you know your 3rd grade teacher even got a PhD (doctoral) degree to boot.

Now that you're in college, you'll get to meet different teachers but now properly adressed as instructors/professors. Let us first discuss what the term "Professor" really means.  In Latin, the word professor is a direct translation of a person who professes to be an expert in some art or science, teacher of highest rank. In some English-speaking countries, it refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual. For example, in the United Kingdom, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, The Netherlands, United States, Canada, and Hong Kong it is a legal title conferred by a university denoting the highest academic rank. However, in some institutions, the term is used only for academics who are tenured or tenure-track. In some countries, e.g. Austria, Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Croatia, France, Italy, Panama, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Spain the term is an honorific applied also to secondary level teachers.

Professors are qualified experts, of the various levels described above, who may do the following:

1. Conduct lectures and seminars in their field of study (i.e., they "profess"), such as the basic fields of science, humanities, social sciences, education, literature, music or the applied fields of engineering, design, medicine, law, or business;

2. perform advanced research in their fields.

3. Provide pro bono community service, including consulting functions (such as advising government and nonprofit organizations);

4. Teach campus-based or online courses with the help of instructional technology;

5. Train young or new academics (graduate students);

6. Carry out administrative or managerial functions, usually at a high level (e.g. deans, heads of department, librarians, etc.).

For easy classification, we could divide the professors into two types: Tenure and Non-Tenure

A tenured professor has a lifetime appointment until retirement, except for dismissal with "due cause". The reason for the existence of such a privileged position is the principle of academic freedom (they can teach however they want to teach). They are also the ones you see on TV when current political and other controversies arise. Although considered as experts in their field, they may also be prone to neglecting their teaching duties if they lack interest in the teaching per se. Also, these lazy or unpleasant professors cannot be forced to improve. Now I know why one of my professors during my freshman year cannot be fired amid his class absences and numerous petitions to the administration to act upon it. Although he's really, really, really good though.

Non-tenure-track positions: Individuals in these positions typically focus on teaching undergraduate courses, do not engage in research (except in the case of "research professors"), do not engage in departmental decision-making, and are not eligible for tenure.

1.Teaching assistant (TA) or teaching fellow (TF): Positions typically held by graduate students. TAs play a supportive role involving grading, review sessions, and labs. Teaching fellows (and at some universities, TAs) teach entire courses.

2.Adjunct instructor / adjunct professor / adjunct lecturer / faculty associate: Typically part-time non-salaried, non-tenure track faculty members who are paid for each class they teach. This position does not always require a completed PhD.

3.Instructor or lecturer: A full-time position at a university that does not involve tenure or a research program in the classical sense. This position does not necessarily require a PhD and usually involves teaching undergraduate introductory courses.

4.Visiting assistant professor: A temporary assistant professor position to cover for an absent professor

5.Research professor: A position that usually carries only research duties with no obligation for teaching. Although research professor positions usually are not eligible to be awarded tenure their ranks parallel those of tenure-track positions; i.e., research assistant professor, research associate professor, and research professor.

Tenured and tenure-track positions: These full-time faculty members engage in both undergraduate and graduate teaching, mentoring, research, and service. Only faculty in these positions are eligible for tenure.

1.Assistant professor: An introductory level professor.

2.Associate professor: A mid-level, usually tenured, professor.

3.Professor (sometimes referred to as "full professor"): a senior, tenured professor.

4.Distinguished professor / endowed chair (e.g., "the John Q. Smith Professor of Physics"): An honorary position in which a full professor's salary is increased by being tied to an endowment derived from the university, private individuals, firms, or foundations.

5.Professor emeritus/emerita: An honorary title bestowed on retired faculty members who have attained the rank of professor.

School Tips: What is GWA?

An acronym that stands for General Weighted Average. This is the average grade that you will get after your grades per subject are multiplied to their respective unit weights and divided by the total units you got. Medyo malabo ba? Eto example:






Math              2.75   <------ sample grade of subject   
English           2.25   <------ sample grade of subject   
Filipino           3.00   <------ sample grade of subject   


Math              3 units    <------ sample units of subject   
English           3 units    <------ sample units of subject   
Filipino           16 units   <------ sample units of subject (kunwari BS Filipino Language major in Linguistics sya - ewan ko lang kung may course talaga na ganito)   


To compute for the GWA:

1. Grade of Subject multiplied by Units = x
2. Get the sum of all x's.
3. Divide the sum by the total number of units (i-aadd mo lang lahat ng units mo, in our example 22 units sya)
4. and there you have it, GWA


Balik tayo sa example natin:


Math              2.75   x 3 units  = 8.25

English           2.25   x 3 units  = 6.75
Filipino           3.00   x 16 units = 48

(8.25) + (6.75) + (48) = 63

63 divided by total number of units (22 units) = 2.86

So the GWA in our example is 2.86.

What is GWA for?

Knowing how to compute for GWA is very important for two reasons: First is when your aspiring for honors. Second is when your actually computing to know what grade should you get with other subjects to barely pass.

I suggest that you focus more on subjects with greater unit weight. But that isn't always the case. Based from my experience during my college freshman year, we (me and my classmates, and my batchmates and almost everyone from the UST College of Nursing) really had a lot of difficulty with our major subject.. CHEMISTRY. So what we did (well most of us) was to focus on getting high grades with the minor subjects to compensate for the low grade we had in Chemistry.

I say, its all about strategy on how you will manage to get a high GWA. But of course, I'm not suggesting that you just study your minors and make "bahala na si batman" your motto when dealing with minors. That's why if you course is BS Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, putting all your efforts in subjects such as Theology would be completely insane, you should have entered the seminary/convent instead.

** It is also very important to not that GWA equivalents may vary per institution. For example in De La Salle University, they rank 5 or singko as being the highest possible attainable grade while in the University of Santo Tomas, getting singko means you failed. Another system is the one employed in Ateneo de Manila University where their grades are not based on numeric characters rather they come as A's, B's, C's and so forth.

School Tips: About Scantron Tests

If you’ve taken the local achievement test such as the National College Aptitude Examination (NCAE) and Standard Achievement Test (SAT), chances are you’ve already encountered those answer sheets with a lot of circles. Those types of papers are called Scantron sheets, named after the company who first produced them. These type of examinations, commonly used for standardized tests, are checked with a machine called a scanner which reads the answers using lasers, and then calculates the score. In the Philippines, these are used in most of the major licensure examinations to facilitate easier checking. Thus, knowing how to answer these type of test is very vital to get a good mark in an examination. So get ready to jot down notes as we discuss everything you need to know about scantron tests.

The typical Scantron test typically invole multiple choice questions wherein the examinee must shade the circle or the bubble to encode his answer. After that, the sheet is run through a Scantron Machine that uses optical mark recognition to check and tabulate the correct answers. But first, an answer key is fed to the machine to guide it in correcting the papers

Why a #2 Pencil? (My teachers usually do prescribe the Mongol brand.)

It is because #2 pencils leave the perfect amount of Graphite behind.  Because during the earlier times, the marks were scored by shining a light though the paper; the bubbles that blocked the light counted as the marked answer. With graphite, when the laser shines on the shaded part, it appears opaque and then counts as one point.

I read about some Scantron myths in the internet and here are some of them:

1) Lip Balm the Margin

Somehow the rumor started a while back that you could game a Scantron Machine simply by taking Chapstick and smearing it along the left hand side of the sheet. The theory was the Chapstick would interfere with the scanning light and trick the machine into counting all of your answers as correct. Unfortunately, there is absolutely no merit to this, and the best case scenario it will result in is making your entire test ungradeable. 

2) Use a Strip of Tape to Confuse the Scanner

This is a slightly more effective variation of the "urban legend" chapstick method. In this method, a strip of clear tape is placed alongside the black lines on the Scantron form and the reflection wreaks havoc on the scanning light, causing the machine to malfunction. Although there's not even a guarantee this will put the machine out of commission, you're once again faced with the problem of an outcome where at best you get no grade, and at worst you're failing the exam.(OPPapers.com)

The thing here with these aforementioned techniques is that they don’t work at all and are merely urban legends.

Given the low likelihood of gaming the system, it's time to employ some more basic tactics for besting a multiple choice test. The following three methods are typically your best options for when no amount of rereading the question is going to magically provide you with the answer.

1) Process of Elimination

If you can rule out any of the answers on multiple choice exams, your chances of making a correct guess are greatly increased. If any of the possible answers require considerable assumptions or are only true under very specific conditions you can most likely eliminate those from consideration. Once you've narrowed down your options then it's time to flip a coin and bubble in your answer.

2) Choose from the Middle

You may have heard "C" is the most common multiple choice answer, and there is actually some merit to that. If you are dealing with a four option multiple choice test, you will tend to score about 5 percent higher by randomly guessing "B" and "C" as opposed to "A" and "D". Unfortunately, this still leaves you with a grade somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 percent, and a definite fail. However, keeping this strategy in mind for select questions where you're forced to choose blindly can help boost your overall score.

3) Repose Each Question as True/False

If you don’t know the answer to the question, ask the question with each answer inserted as a statement.  If the sentence sounds right, then it probably is, if it sounds ridiculous, then cross it off and try the next.

4) Go with your "Gut"

Although it's hardly a substitute for actually knowing the answer, it has been shown that your gut or first instinct is often correct, and you can sometimes tap into correct information on a subconscious level. So, if you don't recall the answer but one of the choices just feels right, it's almost always worthwhile to stick to your guns and just mark it down without over thinking. But, it's probably not advisable to tackle an entire test on instinct alone.

5) Absolute questions are always FALSE

In true or false items in scantron exams, always bear in mind that absolute statements – statements that describe something as general – are typically FALSE. Example of these are statements with “Always” and “Undoubtedly”.

Source: OPPapers.com and Wikipedia