Splendid Scholar
LIB 150
February 13, 2008
What Should Instructors Do About Student Plagiarism?
TOPIC & THESIS STATEMENT
Educators report a marked increase in student plagiarism owing to the ease by which digital information can be accessed and copied. How should they address this problem?
INTRODUCTION
The focus of my research project is student plagiarism, why it occurs, and how instructors should respond to this growing problem in education. Educators are becoming increasingly frustrated by what they perceive among students to be laziness, lack of ethics, and an irresponsible reliance on quickly finding and using information from the Internet without taking the time to think critically about the assignment or analyze the information they find. Students caught plagiarizing often state they didn’t know what they were doing was wrong, didn’t realize they were plagiarizing, or felt pressured to produce good work quickly and so felt they had no choice. Additionally, those international students who are unsure of their written English and were encouraged to learn by rote and copy correctly in their own educational system are less likely to understand that what they are doing is considered academic dishonesty and can have serious repercussions.
As a result, many instructors strive to educate their students about plagiarism, create assignments that promote honest writing and analysis, and teach correct citation practices. In addition, some institutions are turning to information-tracking businesses like iParadigms, creator of TurnItIn, to check their students’ work for plagiarism.
TOPIC ANALYSIS
Keywords
instructors, educators, teachers, administrators, colleges, universities
student, students, international students, student work, writing, essays, papers
plagiarism, academic dishonesty, cheating, copying, cut-and-paste
ProQuest Topics
Plagiarism AND College students
Plagiarism AND Students
Plagiarism AND Internet
Plagiarism AND Colleges & universities
LC Subject Headings
Cheating (Education)
Plagiarism
Internet in education
Students -- Conduct of life
INTERNET SOURCES
"Plagiarism." Assessment in Higher Education. 12 June 2007. Central Queensland University. 1 Oct. 2007 <http://ahe.cqu.edu.au/
plagiarism.htm>.
I found this site by searching Google using the terms “educators plagiarism.” I had started by searching using “students plagiarism” but I wasn’t finding enough information for instructors among my results. I selected this Web page because it provides an extensive bibliography, including numerous online articles and white papers.
Christe, Barbara. "Designing Online Courses to Discourage Dishonesty." Educause Quarterly (2003): 54-58. 31 Oct. 2007 <http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/eqm0348.pdf>.
I found this online article listed in the bibliography of the Web site, above. The author lists numerous suggestions for how instructors can create a learning environment that discourages plagiarism. (These include, interestingly, some ideas that are not “above board,” such as creating a Web site “trap” with false information that students might use, or spying on the students via a false student added to the online discussion board.) The author also briefly addresses ways in which these measures might be assessed.
I enjoyed searching the Internet, but it took me longer than I expected to find a good Web site for my research. I think that part of the problem was in coming up with the right keywords. However, there were a number of resources related to my topic on the Web and I was glad to find a resource that linked directly to other good resources.
PERIODICAL ARTICLES
Badke, William. "Give Plagiarism the Weight It Deserves." Online 1 Sept. 2007 2007: 58-61. Research Library Core. ProQuest. North Seattle Comm. Coll. Lib. 13 Feb. 2008 <http://proquest.umi.com.ez.sccd.ctc.edu:3048/pdqweb>.
This article is up to date and provides an excellent overview of the problem of plagiarism in an online environment. The author cites a recent study conducted by The Center for Academic Integrity, which reported that “40% of almost 50,000 undergraduates questioned have plagiarized from the Net, up from only 10% in 1999. What is more, fully 77% did not view such activity as a serious issue.” The author of this articles states that part of the problem is that students don’t understand that instructors are not necessarily looking for perfect answers in their writing. Rather, research and writing are a kind of conversation (“discussion”), one in which college students can learn to participate.
Fox, Richard W. "A Heartbreaking Problem of Staggering Proportions." The Journal of American History 90.4 (2004): 1341-47. Research Library Core. Proquest. North Seattle Comm. Coll. Lib. 13 Feb. 2008 <http://proquest.umi.com.ez.sccd.ctc.edu:3048/pqdweb>.
The author of this article, a historian, begins by reminding his readers that plagiarism has always been a problem and is not specific to today’s students (or even famous writers). He recommends approaching the problem by emphasizing to students the positive rather than the negative: instead of telling students what not to do, educators should teach students that “the true opposite of plagiarism [is] a well-conceived and well-developed work.” The author also provides excerpts from his syllabi, which makes his position on plagiarism clear to students, and gives permission for other instructors to use this wording.
BOOKS
I found both these books in Voyager and since they were not in the library here at NSCC I requested them to be sent here from the libraries at South and Central.
Bowman, Vibiana, ed. The Plagiarism Plague: A Resource Guide and CD-ROM Tutorial for Educators and Librarians. New York: Neal-Schuman, 2004.
This book sets out to provide “real world examples and lessons of how to teach students the structure and code of scholarly writing.” Each section is written by a different educator or specialist. Topics range from reasons and ways students cheat to remedies and methods for communicating an expectation of academic integrity. This resource guide provides an extensive overview of student plagiarism and related resources, including plagiarism tutorials and citation guides.
Lathrop, Ann, and Kathleen E. Foss. Guiding Students From Cheating and Plagiarism to Honesty and Integrity: Strategies for Change. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited, 2005.
Like the previous book, Guiding Students includes input from a number of educators experienced in the topic. It also lists related resources. However, this book moves beyond the general overview of issues and practices to provide helpful, specific strategies and assignments that educators -- and librarians -- can use to address and deter plagiarism.
Extra Credit Resource
McCabe, Donald, John Barrie, and Michael Williams. Interview. "Cut and Paste Plagiarism." Talk of the Nation. NPR. 14 Feb. 2006. 5 Nov. 2007 <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5205929>.
Self-Evaluation
Please discuss your learning of the research process. I am not looking for a course evaluation, but an evaluation of your own efforts and what you have learned from this class. Include but do not limit your responses to the following: What specific skills or knowledge did you gain? How will you apply these specific skills to current and future classes and to your personal or professional life? In other words, what will you take away from this class that you did not have when you started it? (This section should be 1-2 paragraphs long, and each paragraph should contain a minimum of three sentences.)
4