Academic Writing - UMS

8/11/2019 Academic Writing - UMS

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Academic writing: Citation is troublesome

and plagiarism is no big deal

Associate Professor Dr Su-Hie Ting

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak

[email protected]

Paper presented at ICSSR, 4-5 June 2013, Penang


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Plagiarism

The theft of words or ideas, beyond

what would normally be regarded as

general knowledge (Park, 2003, p. 472).

Low social value on individual work (Zobel &

Hamilton, 2002).

Language difficulties, e.g. theses (LoCastro &Masuko, 1997; Park, 2003).

Everyone does it (Scanlon & Neumann, 2002).


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Purpose of study

The study examined the seriousness of plagiarismbased on students self-reports of strategies used to

complete written assignments in university.

(1) identify the plagiarism behaviours used by students

to complete their written assignments;

(2) determine students attitudes towards penalties for

plagiarism; and(3) determine reasons for the occurrence of plagiarism.


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Method

Questionnaires given to 169 students enrolled in an AcademicReading and Writing course at a Malaysian university in Wk 2 of

semester to find out existing knowledge and practices before

instruction.

- Questionnaire was adapted from Ryan, Bonnano, Krass ,

Scouller, and Smith (2009).

- Part 1: familiarity with citations and requirements to include

citations in assignments- Part 2: attitudes towards plagiarism

- Part 3choice of penalties for plagiarism

- Part 4strategies to complete assignments


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Results 1Extent of plagiarism behaviours

(1= Never; 2=Sometimes; 3=Often; 4=Usually; 5= Always)

1A - Group work practices Mean SD

1. Discussing an individual assignmentwith friends*

4.46 1.13

1. Not contributing your share to a group

assignment

3.82 0.92

1. I share articles with a friend who is

working on the same assignment

topic.*

3.35 1.06


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1B - Academic writing practices Mean

1. Borrowing from different sources and connecting them to make a paragraph 3.61

2. Quoting a paragraph exactly with quotation marks (but not citation) 3.51

3. Including someone elses words in your assignment without citing 3.29

4. I quote an important sentence by copying the exact words with quotation marks (), cite the source and include in the reference list.*

3.23

5. I write a paragraph by taking a few words from a few articles and put them

together. I add my own words to make the meaning clear and include the source in

the reference list.

3.08

6. I use some sentences from an article and put them in a different order from the

original. I cite the source and include in the reference list.

3.05

7. Translating from another language without citing the source 2.94

8. I use information from an article, with a lot of changes in language and

organisation. I also make changes in the amount of detail, cite the source and

include in the reference list.*

2.89

9. I do a key-word web search and cut and paste information in my assignment. 2.51

10. I copy a sentence from an article into my assignment. I do not cite the source but

include it in the reference list.

2.45

11. Downloading material from the web and including it in your assignment without a

reference2.41

12. Inventing references because you have forgotten to copy down the reference2.30


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1C - Help-seeking behaviour Mean

1. Copying another students work with their knowledge 3.26

2. I get ideas from a friend who did the same assignment in

earlier semesters.

3.20

3. Submitting an assignment that has already been given

marks

3.09

4. Getting somebody else to write your assignment/part of

your assignment

3.01

5. Copying another students work without their knowledge 2.72

6. Getting somebody to fix up your assignment to make it

better

2.50

7. I show my assignment to a lecturer for guidance.* 2.48

(1= Never; 2=Sometimes; 3=Often; 4=Usually; 5= Always)


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Results 1Extent of plagiarism behaviours

The most common - mosaic plagiarism, defined as:

borrowing the ideas and opinions from an original source and a

few verbatim words or phrases without crediting the original

author. In this case, the plagiarist intertwines his or her own

ideas and opinions with those of the original author, creating a

confused, plagiarized mass.(American Medical Association

Manual of Style, cited in Iverson et al., 1998, p. 104)

If direct quotations are used without the quotation marks withattribution, the source of the language to explain the ideas has

not been acknowledged (Wilhoit, 1994, p. 161), and this is still

plagiarism.


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Results 2Attitudes towards

seriousness of plagiarism

Penalties for plagiarism %

1. Student receives a warningfrom the lecturer 89.94

2. Student is asked to resubmit the assignment 88.173. Student receives counseling 81.07

4. The incident is reported to the faculty 59.17

5. The incident is reported to the university 40.83

6. Student gets an F (fail) for the assignment 37.87

7. Student gets an F (fail) for the course 24.26

8. No action taken 13.61

9. Student is expelledfrom the university 11.83


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Results 2Attitudes towards

seriousness of plagiarism

No big deal

Dont realise plagiarism constitutestheft of intellectual property.


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Results 3Reasons for plagiarism

3A - Reasons for not including citations %

1. I dont know how to cite 65.68

2. My lecturers didnt ask me to cite 38.46

3. My lecturers dont minus marks if we dont cite 20.71

4. My friends also didnt cite 17.16

5. I want lecturers to think that the ideas are mine 12.43


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Results 3Reasons for plagiarism

3B - Extent of correctness of citations %

1. Mostly correct 17.75

2. Half correct, half wrong 49.11

3. Mostly wrong 8.88

4. Do not know if I got it correctly or wrongly 24.26

Total 100.00


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Conclusion

All the students have been involved in

some form of plagiarism when

completing their written assignmentsand a substantial proportion do not

realise the severity of plagiarism as an

act of academic dishonesty.


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Conclusion.

Permissive attitudes towards plagiarism seem tostem from: Sharing resources in group work is OK with peers

consent.

Lack of knowledge on citation conventionsmosaic plagiarism and omission of quotation marks

and sources.

Lack of lecturer emphasis on citations.

Need for institutional policy and practices to

deal with attribution of intellectual property and

academic integrity.

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