The Difference between Originality and Plagiarism - Essay Example

 Foundation Project The Difference between Originality and Plagiarism The plagiarism means copying some ones writings without acknowledging author’s name and source of the content. Every new thought or idea is a derivation of some old thought or idea. A good writer is one who while putting his or her own idea and thought acknowledges all the sources and their authors who helped them build their writing. After all, everything in this world is evolving. New scientific discoveries and inventions are based on old discoveries and findings and that is what known as prior art in the field of patents. The patent committee while granting a patent to the new invention or device takes into account these prior arts and find out how new device or invention is substantially different from the previous one. New inventions cannot take place until the old principles and concepts are made use of. A new genuine inventor always acknowledges the old guiding principles and theories based on which his or her device is based. And that does not bar them to have a patent for their own device. Something similar is the case in the world of writing. In fact, any future writing is an improvement or a modification or a novelty over the previous one propounded by others. It is a moral duty on the part of a new writer to acknowledge the source and author from where he or she has taken ideas of writing. Moreover, it gives authenticity to the ideas generated or new findings derived. Process Used to Develop a Research Question A research question should not be framed on general topic rather it should be based on some specific and focused current issue. The research question clearly describes the purpose of the study. A research question without context fails to generate any real interest of the reader on the paper. As such there are no hard and fast rules to frame a research question. It all depends upon our understanding about the problem area and our ability to think clearly as to what we want to achieve. Thus, a research question clearly spells out the significance of the study. Further, it is also necessary to ensure that question is easily and completely researchable. Difference between Description and Analysis Description is a collection of information necessary to carry out the research. Literature review is a must before we can put relevant description on the topic and research question. Our literature review should follow the concept of unity and coherence so that our discussion remains focused throughout. The description that we make out should be well structured and organized. These details are necessary for our analysis part. Analysis is a process systematically employed to arrive at certain deductions logically and scientifically. Description is like a foundation of the building on which whole construction of analysis rests. For a good and meaningful analysis, detailed but pertinent review and description is necessary. Data selection Data selection is an important part of correct analysis. Many scientific researches are not possible without a proper set of data available to researcher. Thus, data collection becomes an important part to steer meaningful research. Data collection becomes more important particularly when research has some quantitative measures to investigate. Depending upon the research question, data could be of either operational in nature such as inventory, cost, payroll, accounting or nonoperational types related to macroeconomic issues. Data also give us the information about past trend. The study of the past trend based on the available data can be extrapolated to give future indications and outcomes. Since the outcomes and results are derived from the collected data, it becomes even more important for us to remain double sure about the authenticity of data. Many marketing issues and strategies are based on several set of data that are collected across wide section of community, their buying behaviors, the demographics and many such factors. The data mining thus becomes important. Authentic data selection has wider implication on the critical analysis and in preparation of our decision matrix. Research Question Does Current US housing price trend correlate with unemployment rate? What unemployment rate US should achieve to arrest the further fall in housing prices? In order to arrive at the conclusion whether US housing price has any correlation with unemployment rate, we need to have data revealing unemployment rate in last 10 years. The average unemployment rates and average sales price of housing in US for last 10 years are found as per the following. Year Unemployment rate in % Average sales price of new homes in $ 2000 4.0 207,000 2001 4.7 213,000 2002 5.8 228,700 2003 6.0 246,300 2004 5.5 274,500 2005 5.1 297,000 2006 4.6 305,900 2007 4.6 313,600 2008 5.8 292,600 2009 9.3 270,900 2010 9.0 272,900 2011 9.2 270,500 Source: http://www.census.gov/const/uspriceann.pdf http://www.visualeconomics.com/a-decade-of-unemployment/ Analysis of Data Above data when studied in detail reveals a lot regarding some correlation between unemployment rate and housing prices. The U.S. housing price has been on rise since the year 2000 until 2007. The average price rise is found to be about 5% percent or more. The unemployment rate between 2000 and 2007 was hovering between 4 to 6 percent. This unemployment rate had no effect on the uptrend of housing price. (A Decade of…) It is a well known fact that market moves up and down as per the demand and supply parameters. It is a fact that during the period a cheap credit was available to borrowers and that fueled the demand. Speculators did enter the market taking advantage of the easy availability of finance. Demand of the housing during the period was made of genuine consumers and speculators; however, as usual speculator’s sole objective is profiting from the deal and they are never long term holders of the commodity and they dump the good as soon as they see the first sign of weakness in the market. Once they became sellers supply increased manifold with demand reducing drastically. That is what happened in the housing market during 2008 and onwards when subprime mortgage crisis surfaced and everybody got in panicky. (Amadeo 2011) The whole event culminated into a crisis when economy took downturn and people started losing their jobs. Those who had taken housing loans under a long term mortgage and became unemployed suddenly found that they were not able to repay their loan installments. Eventually, a lot of properties came to the stage of foreclosure for the recovery of loans from banks and credit agencies. That further increased the supply of housing units putting more pressure on price. Usually, a trend continues in the direction until a strong and sustained reason comes for a reversal. A sustained minimum low unemployment rate of around 5 percent if gets established, which has been seen historically before 2007 could be a strong reason for a reversal. According to Berg (2011), the accumulated housing stock, which is currently found to be almost 1.2 million units, will take considerable time before it is completely absorbed. Conclusion It should be kept in mind that unemployment rate is not an only correlation between rising and falling housing prices. But reverse is true that if further fall in housing prices has to halt then unemployment rate must decrease; that is how the accumulated stock of the housing will get absorbed. The accumulated housing stock, which is currently found to be almost 1.2 million units, will take considerable time before it is completely absorbed. Experts opine that given the current economic crisis unemployment rate will recover slowly. If low unemployment rate of 5 percent remains for at least 3-4 quarters and the data then reveals that all accumulated stock has been absorbed then we can say that housing price has bottomed out and it will not decrease further. This, in any case, should not be construed that it will start rising as our research question is limited to find that when housing prices in US will stop declining. References 1. Developing a Research Question, 22 July, 2011 http://www.esc.edu/esconline/across_esc/writerscomplex.nsf/0/f87fd7182f0ff21c852569c2005a47b7 2. Wong, Paul; How to write a Research Proposal, 22 July, 2011 http://www.meaning.ca/archives/archive/art_how_to_write_P_Wong.htm 3. Median and Average Sales Prices of New Homes Sold in United States, 22 July, 2011 http://www.census.gov/const/uspriceann.pdf 4. A Decade of Unemployment, 22 July, 2011, http://www.visualeconomics.com/a-decade-of-unemployment/ 5. Berg, Robert 2011. Housing Inventory Data, 22 July 2011, http://www.woodbiomass.com/woodbiomass/news/North-America/Wood-Energy/RISI-VIEWPOINT-UPDATE-US-Census-fourth-quarter-2010-housing-inventory-data.html 6. Amadeo, Kimberly 2011, What Caused the Subprime Mortgage Crisis? 22 July 2011, http://useconomy.about.com/od/criticalssues/tp/Subprime-Mortgage-Crisis-Cause.htm 7. Four Reasons that Unemployment Will Recover Slowly, 22 July 2011 http://www.visualeconomics.com/four-reasons-that-unemployment-will-recover-slowly/ Read More