Plagiarism

The Ethical Questions• Why are you attending college?• What do you want to learn?• What do we learn from writing papers, essays?• How is cheating or plagiarism tied to your tests,

your papers?• What ethical issues are involved in cheating?• Who does plagiarism hurt? Who does cheating

harm?• What if you are not “caught?”• How would you feel if someone copied your research

and did not give credit to you, passing the ideas off as their own? Would you trust that person after?

• Are you trustworthy?• Does it matter?

Plagiarism in the professional world

Presentation Agenda

• Why do we cite our sources?• What is plagiarism?• Why do students plagiarize?• How do I avoid plagiarism?• Sources of online plagiarism?• How do faculty & librarians detect

plagiarized papers?

Why do we cite?• Give credit where credit is due• This is how research happens—we build

on other research• Prove that you’ve done your work—

protect yourself• For the reader’s further interest and

investigation• So your teacher or professor can check

your sources.

What is Plagiarism?“According to the Merriam-Webster Online

Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own• to use (another's production) without crediting the source• to commit literary theft• to present as new and original an idea or product derived from

an existing source.• In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both

stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.

But can words and ideas really be stolen?” http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html

“According to U.S. law, the answer is yes.

The expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property, and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions. Almost all forms of expression fall under copyright protection as long as they are recorded in some way (such as a book or a computer file).” http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html

“All of the following are considered plagiarism:

• turning in someone else's work as your own• copying words or ideas from someone else

without giving credit• failing to put a quotation in quotation marks• giving incorrect information about the source

of a quotation• changing words but copying the sentence

structure of a source without giving credit• copying so many words or ideas from a source

that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not”

http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html

Plagiarism is

• Academic dishonesty• Unethical behavior• Unfair

Whether intentional or unintentional

Situations when plagiarism occurs most often

1. Direct Quotes

• If you use someone else’s exact writing without putting it in quotes, you have blatantly plagiarized.

• Even if you add the source in your bibliography, it is still plagiarism.

2. Paraphrasing

• Be careful about rewriting someone else’s words. If your sentences use many of the same words and grammatical structure as the original source, it could be plagiarism.

Just put the text in your own words…

Paraphrasing needs practice!• Read selection• Read selection again, slowly• Cover/close/hide selection• Talk aloud about the selection to someone else—

try to explain what you read• Write down your words without looking at source• Check what you have written against the original• If you cannot do this—re-read!

– Try to get input from someone to see if you understood the selection

– If you still cannot do this—choose a different source or selection

3. Original Idea• Give credit (“attribute”) to unique ideas

others have thought up—their analysis or conclusion or interpretation of an event. You need:– Quotations if direct quote – In text citation or footnote and– Works Cited or References

• If you present the ideas of another without crediting them, you have plagiarized them.

• Obvious ideas, like known facts, don’t have to be credited.

• When in doubt, attribute.

Why do students cheat?

1. “A Means to an End”

For some, learning is not a priority. Getting a diploma and a good job after graduation is.

2. “This does not relate to my major...”

Some students resent having to take courses not directly tied to their major. They see “general education requirements” as a waste of their time, so not worth the effort of study.

3. “I have to be top of the class!” Many students feel incredible pressure to maintain a high grade point average. This can come from friends and family. Students also feel high grades are necessary for getting a good job or getting into the college or graduate school of their choice. Plagiarized papers are seen as a way of keeping the GPA high.

4. “This is a stupid assignment”

Students often recognize when an assignment is “busy work” and feel that “if the teacher doesn’t respect me, I won’t respect the assignment.”

5. “I am too busy to write!”

• Heavy class load• Jobs• Family obligations• Sports• Social activities• Extra-curricular

events• Resume building

experiences

6. “Everyone does it, so I have to!”

Other students are cheating. This may give them an unfair advantage over students who do not cheat. Plagiarism is a way “to level the playing field.”

7. Our “Culture?”• Students do not report each other• Some teachers “don’t care” or ignore it• Some teachers “feel sorry” for the

student and do not enforce school policy

• Too much of a “hassle” for some teachers to deal with—angry parents & administration

• Easy to cheat and copy

8. “Huh?”

Some students do not know they are

plagiarizing.

“But I included the website!”

Studies Show that the Amount of Plagiarism in Colleges relates to:

• Size of school matters—smaller, less cheating

• Private vs. Public matters—private less cheating

• Sex does not matter

• Honor code, Code of Ethics in place in school.

McCabe, D.M. (2001). Cheating in academic institutions: a decade of research. Ethics & Behavior, 11(3), 219-232.

Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism

1. “Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!”• Avoid paper mills

—free or purchased papers.

• Surfing the Web to look for “easy’ information.

• Turning in other student papers as your own.These are easy

ways to get caught!

What does the student get when the download a paper?

• Dated material• Poor writing• Bad or

nonexistent research

Usually, but not always

“Good” papers can come from a variety of sources.

• Old fraternity paper files that have been digitized.

• Students using previous papers.• Students uploading the papers of others.• For fee websites—they sell term papers.

These can all be caught using a plagiarism service, and many colleges and high schools do

2. “Quotes”

Always put quotes from text in quotations. Never forget to do this. Forgetting or neglecting this is the easiest way to get accused of plagiarism.

3. Good Paraphrasing…• Be sure you are not just rearranging or

replacing words.• Rewrite the phrase in your own words

and credit the original source.• Double check what you wrote by

comparing it with the original writing.In essence—know the material!

How do teachers & readers detect plagiarism?

They look for…

1. Writing Style?

• The writing style, language, vocabulary, tone, and grammar is different than what is expected from the student.

• Different writing styles, tones, language, etc. in different parts of paper tell the reader that different authors were used.

2. Web Address?

Readers check to see if there is a web address at the top or the bottom of a page. This probably means the paper was printed with a web browser directly from a web site. (Pretty dumb!)

3. Copyright notice?Check to see if any copyright notices are anywhere in the text of the paper. Also check to see if any notices similar to “this free paper brought to you by schoolsucks.com” appear anywhere in the paper.

Some students do not read through all the text before turning it in as their own!

4. Layout?Is the page strangely or poorly laid out? This could mean that the text was imported into a word processor. The imported text was originally formatted differently and the conversion changed how the page looks. If a student does not take the time to fix it, the page will look odd when printed.

5. Graph or Chart Reference?

Does the paper make reference to charts or graphs that can not be found? Maybe the originally paper had these items but subsequent recycling and reusing and downloading has resulted in the loss of these items.“The chart above is based on data from the Bureau of

Public Debt up to September 8, 2008, the last reporting day before this chart was created. “

6. Inactive Web Sites?

The bibliography of the paper lists web sites that are no longer active.

7. Dated material & studies?

Many of the citations in the bibliography are at least a few years old or not current enough for the subject. Citations may have been new when the paper was originally written.

Very obvious with APA Style documentation!

8. “The past” is now?

Does the paper make reference to past events as if they where happening today? (“I believe that the impeachment hearings on President Clinton are unfair and are politically biased. The whole impeachment process should be stopped now.”)

9. They use Google Search

Type in a key sentence as a phrase search:

Google Search is used by teachers, librarians, teaching assistants, and

professors all the time to detect plagiarism.

10. They use Professional Search Programs

These scan papers against online resources for a fee, searching free sites and subscription databases. Many high schools and colleges use turnitin.com.

Students submit directly to turnitin.com and report goes to teacher or teacher asks paper to be submitted if suspicion.

ACADEMIC HONESTY For XXXX School Year XXXXX students are expected to demonstrate the highest standards of academic honesty. Academic dishonesty includes providing or copying homework, providing or receiving information during quizzes or tests, and providing or using unauthorized materials during quizzes or tests. Academic dishonesty also includes plagiarism, which is using the words or ideas of another person as one’s own without giving credit. Consequences assigned by the teacher and administration will include receiving a zero on the assignment/test, as well as a disciplinary consequence of a Saturday detention, suspension, probation, or expulsion. (P. XXX) XXX Handbook 20XX-20XX. 

Kathy Festerkfester@gmail.com

http://researchwithkathyfesterAdapted from presentation by

Michael Lorenzen

Plagiarism: Huh? by Kathy Fester is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Last updated 7/1/12