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 What
is Plagiarism?
In a nutshell, plagiarism is the taking
of the thoughts, ideas, concepts, artwork, and/or photography of another
and claiming it as your own. More times than not plagiarism is
unintentional, but there are those individuals who for various reasons
plagiarize intentionally .
Types of Plagiarism:
Most blatant forms of plagiarism:
- Copying the work of another student,
with or without his permission, and turning it in as his own. This
includes homework.
- Copying word for word without using
quotation marks.
- When paraphrasing, changing only a few
words or phrases.
- Paraphrasing or summarizing without
attribution.
- Incorrect citations or false
citations.
- Copying and pasting from the internet
without attribution.
- Using photos or art from the internet
without attribution.
- Turning in a paper written by someone
else as your own work (online paper mills or having a friend or parent
write it.)
How
to Recognize Plagiarism
- Student work that contains maps,
charts, graphs or statistical data without attribution unless it is
clearly evident that the charts and graphs are a result of his own
analysis and making.
- Wording and/or phrasing that is
clearly not typical of the student's writing style and/or
ability.
- Work for which it is clearly evident
that attribution is needed but there is none.
- A change of style within a paragraph
or throughout the paper.
- Content that seems out of place or
context.
- You've read this
"information" somewhere before. (This is the hardest type of
plagiarism to track down but not always impossible.)
Strategies
for Prevention:
- Talk to your students about plagiarism
and the fair use policy. The rules and guidelines apply to multimedia
projects as well as written papers. To look at the Fair Use
Guidelines For Educational Multimedia, click here.
Dr.Bruce
Leland (Dept. of Eng. & Journalism at Western Illinois
University), suggests that you might want to approach this issue by
referring to it as the protection of "intellectual property"
and "fair use" rather than as plagiarism.
- Design assignments that avoid the
"cut and paste" method. Create assignments that require
analysis, problem solving and synthesis rather than summary. Jamie
McKenzie, ED.D and noted educational author offers some excellent
advice on how to create such assignments at http://www.fno.org/may98/cov98may.html
- Give very clear and specific
directions as to what you expect in the way of documentation or
attribution on a paper or multimedia project.
- For multimedia projects, require that
students produce their research and final written draft to you before
they sit down to create their presentations or web pages. Students who
create their project or are keying in their papers with a book in
their laps are more that likely copying.
- Provide time for in class writing (I'm
not talking about research here, although you will probably need to do
that too in most cases) and hold individual conferences with
students. They need to know that you are monitoring their work
as well as providing guidance.
- For research papers and multimedia
projects that require research, set specific due dates for specific
parts of the assignment (outline, note cards, rough draft etc.)
Overnight Wonders are the most likely candidates for plagiarism.
- Require printout/photo copies of
source material that has been used, and tell students that you will be
checking their work against the source material.
- Tell students that you are aware of
the online paper mills.
Verifying
Plagiarism:
So, you think you are reading a paper
that may be plagiarized. Do not confront the student until
you have done a little homework, and then you need to be very careful
about how you approach the student.
- If you think a passage has been
plagiarized ...
- first check the student work
against the original, assuming of course that you required a copy
of cited material. When paraphrasing, most kids tend to put the
citation at the end of a long paragraph with no introductory text
that indicates where the cited material begins.
- Check the bibliography and go to
the original source.
- Go to a search engine and type in
the questionable phrase (put the phrase in quotes). This string
search will result in a listing of web sites with all or part of
the phrase.
- talk to the student to see if he
knows and understands what he has written. An overly enthusiastic
parent may have "helped" his child a little too much.
- If you think an entire paper (this
includes essays, short stories, poems, etc) is not
the original work of the student ...
- Go to a search engine and type in
the questionable phrase (put the phrase in quotes). This string
search will result in a listing of web sites with all or part of
the phrase.
- Go directly to one of the Paper
Mills and do what the kids do: use their internal search
engine and type in the topic of the paper.
Paper
Mills:
When I was in college, fraternities and
sororities were notorious for keeping old exams and papers on file for
their members to use. Today, the metal file cabinet has been replaced with
an electronic one: Papers Mills. These internet sites offer students
written papers on a wide variety of topics for free or sometimes for a fee
. All a student has to do, in most cases, is type in his topic on
the site's internal search engine, select a paper, and then print
it. For an extensive list of Paper Mills, visit Kimbel
Library--Cheating 101: Internet Paper Mills. Try some of them out. The
quality of many of these papers is a real hoot!
Additional
Resources:
- The
Columbia Guide to Online Style: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/idx_basic.html
- Avoiding
Plagiarism by Sharon Williams. This Hamilton Writing Center
site provides examples of acceptable and unacceptable paraphrasing.
http://www.hamilton.edu/academic/Resource/WC/
AvoidingPlagiarism.html
- Plagiarism
Q&A: This site offers a wealth of information for teachers
including how to cite, how to create a bibliography, links for
additional information, etc.
http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~mspears/plagiarism.html
- Plagiarism:
What It Is and How to Recognize it. This site provides
examples of acceptable and unacceptable paraphrasing, gives a
definition of "Common Knowledge:, and ways to avoid plagiarism.
The student is the audience for this site. http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/wts/plagiarism.html
- Student
Plagiarism in an Online World: An excellent article written by
a teacher who shares with her audience the types of plagiarism her
students tried on her in class and how she handled each situation.
http://www.asee.org/prism/december/html/
student_plagiarism_in_an_onlin.htm
- Quoting,
Paraphrasing, and Summarizing:
This handout from the Purdue University Online Writing Lab will help
students distinguish and practice these three research techniques.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/
r_quotprsum.html
- Paraphrase:
Write it in Your Own Words: This handout from the Purdue
Online Writing Lab explains what paraphrasing is, provides steps on
effective paraphrasing and provides examples of acceptable and
unacceptable paraphrasing.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_paraphr.html
- Online:
A Reference Guide to Using Internet Resources
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/online/
An excellent resource. In
addition to providing the specifics of how to cite using the various
styles (MLA, APA, etc., it also provides examples of how to introduce
cited material.
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