How to detect and combat plagiarism Shannon Mersand Summer 2009

John decides he wants an iPod but he doesn’t feel like going to the store to buy his own, even though he has the money. He sees yours sitting outside of the cafeteria on the shelves, and takes it. When you ask him if it’s yours, he says no, even though it has your name engraved on it. What is this? Image from Apple Insider

Fred has to do a paper for History Class. He knows about the topic, but he doesn’t feel like sitting down to write the paper. Fred goes on the internet and finds a paper on a website, copies it and submits it as his own. When the teacher asks him why it looks so familiar, he claims he doesn’t know. What is this? Image from The American Memory Project

Amy has to create a list of facts about rocks for Earth Science. She goes online and finds tons of information on her topic, which she copies and pastes into a Word document. Amy turns the Word document in as her list of facts. Amy does not say where the information came from. What is this? Image From Living Wilderness

The Basics In order to encourage students not to plagiarize, it is important that teachers understand what plagiarism is Often, the assignments given unintentionally encourage students to plagiarize

What is our stance? From the Pawling High School Student Handbook Plagiarism is considered an Infraction with a penalty. The penalties that may be imposed are: – Suspension from athletic or extra curricular participation or events, – In-school suspension; – Removal from classroom for up to two days; – Suspension for up to 5 days; – Suspension from school in excess of five days; – Loss of credit or zero grade.

What is plagiarism? Main Entry: pla·gia·rize 1 : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source 2 : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source From Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary

Did you know… According to a study conducted by Donald McCabe on incidence of high school plagiarism: 72% of students reported one or more instances of serious cheating on written work 15% had submitted a paper obtained in large part from a term paper mill or website 52% had copied a few sentences from a website w/o citing the source 90% of the students using the Internet to plagiarize had also plagiarized from written sources. The Center for Academic Integrity

What we see every day Frequently, student copy and paste information for their reports directly from the internet Students pay other students to do the work for them Students don’t realize they have to cite their sources because they aren’t REQUIRED to as part of their grade Students copy each others homework assignments without learning anything Students “help” each other type assignments

Your assignments may be adding to the problem Not requiring PROPER citation for any information that is not in the students’ heads constitutes plagiarism Not using a set research process encourages plagiarism

Ways to Plagiarize: Plagiarism.org identifies 11 types of plagiarism

Paper Mills Planet Papers Planet Papers Evil House of Cheat Evil House of Cheat School Sucks School Sucks Free Essay Network Free Essay Network Essay World Essay World Cheater.com Cheater.com

Sources Not Cited "The Ghost Writer" – The writer turns in another's work, word-for-word, as his or her own. "The Photocopy" – The writer copies significant portions of text straight from a single source, without alteration. "The Potluck Paper" – The writer tries to disguise plagiarism by copying from several different sources, tweaking the sentences to make them fit together while retaining most of the original phrasing. From Plagiarism.org

Sources Not Cited "The Poor Disguise" – Although the writer has retained the essential content of the source, he or she has altered the paper's appearance slightly by changing key words and phrases. "The Labor of Laziness" – The writer takes the time to paraphrase most of the paper from other sources and make it all fit together, instead of spending the same effort on original work. " The Self-Stealer" – The writer "borrows" generously from his or her previous work, violating policies concerning the expectation of originality adopted by most academic institutions. From Plagiarism.org

Sources Cited (But still Plagiarized) "The Forgotten Footnote" – The writer mentions an author's name for a source, but neglects to include specific information on the location of the material referenced. This often masks other forms of plagiarism by obscuring source locations. "The Misinformer" – The writer provides inaccurate information regarding the sources, making it impossible to find them. "The Too-Perfect Paraphrase" – The writer properly cites a source, but neglects to put in quotation marks text that has been copied word-for-word, or close to it. Although attributing the basic ideas to the source, the writer is falsely claiming original presentation and interpretation of the information. From plagiarism.org

"The Resourceful Citer" – The writer properly cites all sources, paraphrasing and using quotations appropriately. The catch? The paper contains almost no original work! It is sometimes difficult to spot this form of plagiarism because it looks like any other well-researched document. "The Perfect Crime" – Well, we all know it doesn't exist. In this case, the writer properly quotes and cites sources in some places, but goes on to paraphrase other arguments from those sources without citation. This way, the writer tries to pass off the paraphrased material as his or her own analysis of the cited material. From plagiarism.org Sources Cited (But still Plagiarized)

How can I avoid plagiarism? Ask students to identify any information that would not be considered common knowledge Tell students that unless in direct quotes, they must paraphrase what the original author said Encourage students to use a quote if they can’t think of a way to paraphrase the information always, Always, ALWAYS require that students cite the source of any information in any assignment.

Does it matter which style of citation they use? No. Because we do not know which style their future will require, it is important that they become familiar with all of them. Choose one you are comfortable with. There are two citation styles that are in frequent use at the high school and college level. They are: MLA (Modern Language Association) APA (American Psychological Association)

What if I don’t know the style myself? Ask me! – I have easy to follow handouts that I would love to share with you and your students. Ask your librarian Ask an English teacher Google it!

When should students start to cite information? As soon as you ask them to use information that doesn’t come from their head Citation forms are easily adapted for children as young as Kindergarten

So how do I get started Talk to your students about Plagiarism – If you aren’t comfortable, ask your friendly librarian to do an information session with your students – Even if they say “we already know that” don’t believe them. The more reinforcement, the easier it will become Start requiring proper citations – If your students don’t know how to do them, teach them, or ask your friendly librarian to do an information session with your students.

Preventing Plagiarism Evaluate the assignments you give to students – Do you require PROPER citations? – Would it be easy for them to copy and paste from the internet? – Do they require them to synthesize information or simply regurgitate it? – Do you change your assignments every year so they are unable to copy a friend from last years?

Preventing Plagiarism Check their citations! Require a working bibliography and actually check their sources Ask for an annotated working bibliography (why is this source a good one for my project?) Question anything questionable Require notes taken by hand Require outlines Require rough drafts Do not allow topic changes without students handing in new notes, outlines and drafts

Detecting Plagiarism Look for things like: – stilted language – many misspellings – awkward transitions between paragraphs or sections – strange formatting – grayed text, multiple fonts If it doesn’t look like something your student did – Google some key phrases and see what comes up – Many students don’t think teachers will check, prove them wrong

Detecting Plagiarism Check their bibliography – Could they have gotten this information from sources available to them? – Do we subscribe to the database they claim they got an article from? – Do we have access to the books they claim they used? (Most librarians keep track of all Inter Library Loans)

Some great sites to check out – Ideas for teaching about plagiarism – Ideas to help prevent plagiarism – Examples of types of plagiarism – Lots of links and tips – Again, great tips and links – Free analysis! oppers.html oppers.html – Lots of great links!

Some food for thought Cell phones make it far easier to cheat – Students can take pictures of study guides and notes – Student can take pictures of the test – Students can text answers to each other iPods also make it easier to cheat – Large amounts of information can be stored in iPods, including files of all types – Students can view pictures and/or text files of study guides and notes – Students can view pictures and/or text files of the tests

Images and information from… Definitions from Merriam-Webster’s Online DictionaryMerriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary iPod image from Apple InsiderApple Insider Historical image from The American Memory ProjectThe American Memory Project Rock image from Living WildernessLiving Wilderness Disciplinary actions from Pawling High School Handbook Plagiarism Statistics from The Center for Academic IntegrityThe Center for Academic Integrity