Accidental Plagiarism in Higher
Education.
2013 Hawaii International Conference on Education
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
2
Hi Ms. Kier,
This is __________ speaking. I’m calling in regards to my essay. Not only was the way
that you phrased it entirely unprofessional on your part, it’s completely & totally not true.
I would never plagiarize a paper. I’ve never plagiarized anything in my life. I managed to
graduate with hounours from my undergrad university degree without ever being remotely
accused of anything like that.
The application that you sent me is something that unfortunately my computer is not
compatible with. So I can’t even open it to find out how you basically accused me of this.
But believe me I intend to fight you on this ‘cause there’s absolutely no way that it’s true.
I went out of my way to cite all of my sources. To have in my paper. And I worked very
hard over a lengthy period of time on this. Believe me Ms. Kier, I intend to fight you 100%
on this ‘cause there’s no way you can prove that I plagiarised because I didn’t. I think
that’s pretty clear with my 25 footnotes. [sigh]
Anyway, I guess I will speak to you at another time regarding this matter. If you’d like to
give me a call to discuss it, my number is ______But if not, I intend to take it higher with
someone else in the department. Thank you very much for taking so long to get back to me
on every single matter I’ve contacted you about and for generally not being available to
answer my questions. And for accusing me of plagiarism. Very very kind of you.
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
3

“Copy and paste” plagiarism
 Copying of a few passages.
 NOT reproducing an entire article.
• “Issues of pedagogy” vs. fraud (Howard, 2000)
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
4

Questionnaires with scenarios
 Is it “okay” to _______?
 Which of the following are acceptable?
If acknowledge source,
don’t need quotation
marks
24%
Ellery, 2008
Ok to use some
sentences from
original source with a
couple of minor word
changes
38%
40%
Marshall & Garry,
2005
Ok to change a few
words from a quote
48%
Cheryl Kier
Zimitat, 2008
Athabasca University
Ellery, 2008
5
Unable to describe what
was wrong with a plagiarized
passage
29%
Jackson, 2006
Training helps
Students randomly
assigned for training
showed less plagiarism
than control group
Dee & Jacob,
2010
Walker,
2008
Unable to recognize
plagiarized passages
Half
Roig, 1997
Jones, 2011
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
6
423 of 497 registrants (85%) in Adolescent
Psychology completed all 5 course quizzes
 August 8, 2007 to November 9, 2010

 Generally 87% female
 Mean age = 30.
 43% live in Alberta.
 3.4% international students.
 53.6% other province or territory.
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
7

Quizzes 1-4: 1 question to recognize plagiarism
 Select 1 of 4 options that did or did not represent
plagiarism of that passage

Quiz 5: “Write the above passage in your own
words in a way that does NOT constitute
plagiarism.”

Prediction: After feedback on 4 quizzes, should be
able to write quiz 5 question (& future papers)
without plagiarism
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
8

Quizzes 1-4: Frequency count of number of questions
correct (0-4)

Quiz 5: Based on Walker (2008, p.390)
 “1) word strings, that is lifting exact phrases consisting of five-




to-nine words from the original
2) substitutions, modifying the original text by using one to two
synonyms;
3) additions, including one-to- two new words to the original
4) deletions, eliminating one-to-four words from the original;
5) reversals, rearranging sentence order or interchanging
phrases."
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
9
Number of Questions
Correct
All 4 questions correct
N
3 questions correct
119
28.0%
2 questions correct
67
15.8%
1 question correct
17
4.0%
No questions correct
5
1.2%
Cheryl Kier
Percent of Students
215 50.8%
Athabasca University
10

Quiz 1
93.8% correct

Quiz 2
75.5% correct

Quiz 3
71.5% correct

Quiz 4
82.2% correct
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
11
“Although nearly all Trukese males in
their teens and twenties engage in these
activities, their externalizing escapades
are limited to the weekends, and they
rarely drink or fight during the week.”
(31 words)
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
12
Open-Ended Plagiaristic
Instances (420 students)

Substitutions: N=453

Word strings: N=376

Additions:
N=58

Deletions:
N=34

Reversals:
N=18
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
13

4 Questions Right: F(1,392) = 77.3, p< .001 (87.7% vs. 93.5%).

Word Strings:
Fisher's Exact Test (1) = .47, NS

Deletions:
Fisher's Exact Test (1) = .005, NS

Reversals:
Fisher's Exact Test (1) = .045, NS

Additions:
Borderline; Fisher's Exact Test(1) = 3.23,
p<.084

Substitutions:
Opposite to expectation; Fisher's Exact
Test (1) = 4.42, p<.03
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
14
Original passage:
“Although nearly all Trukese males in their teens and
twenties engage in these activities, their externalizing
escapades are limited to the weekends, and they
rarely drink or fight during the week.”

 “their externalizing escapades”
 “externalizing escapades”
 “escapades”
 TOTAL
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
8 (1.9%)
35 (8%)
57 (13.6%)
100 (23.5%)
15

“Although nearly all Trukese males in their teens and
twenties engage in these activities, their
externalizing escapades are limited to the weekends,
and they rarely drink or fight during the week.”
 Think about the meaning of the following sentences.

Weekends are the typical times for Trukese males, in
the teens to early twenties range, to drink or fight
as a way of externalizing the activities.

Almost all male Trukese's adolescents and emerging
adolescents externalize their drinking and fighting
behaviors on weekends. It is rare for these
escapades to occur on weekdays.
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
16

It would appear as though these activities
are limited to the weekend. According to
Arnett (2007) "their externalizing escapades
are limited to weekends, and they rarely
drink or fight during the week".

Most teenage and early twenties Trukese
males engage in externalizing episodes such
as drink and fight on the weekend but this
type of behavior is quite rare during the
week (Gilmore, 1990; as cited in Arnett,
2007).
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
17

Large numbers of students don’t
understand what is plagiarism

High performing students don’t
understand better than lower performing
students

Simple exercise not sufficient to teach
plagiarism
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
18

Evidence suggests much/most plagiarism is
inadvertent.

Students may be missing skills

Punitive measures (e.g., failing course)
ineffective
 Prevent/remedy by modules/tutorials
• how to read articles, summarize main points,
language of the discipline, etc.
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
19

Dee, T. S., & Jacob, B. A. (2010). Rational ignorance in
education: A field experiment in student plagiarism. NBER
Working Paper Series Working Paper 15672. Retrieved
from http://www.nber.org/papers/w15672

Ellery, K. (2008). Undergraduate plagiarism: a
pedagogical perspective. Assessment & Evaluation in
Higher Education, 33(5), 507–516.

Howard, R. M. (2000). Sexuality, textuality: The cultural
work of plagiarism. College English 62, 473-91.
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
20

Jackson, P. (2006). Plagiarism construction online:
Assessing undergraduate students' ability to avoid
plagiarism, College & Research Libraries 67(5), 418-428.

Jones, D. L. R. (2011). Academic dishonesty: Are more
students cheating? Business Communication Quarterly,
74(2), 141-150. DOI: 10.1177/1080569911404059

Marshall, S. & Garry, M. (2005). Dec. 3-6. How well do
students really understand plagiarism? Paper presented
at the annual ascilite conference, Brisbane, Australia.
Cheryl Kier
21

Roig, M. (1997). Can undergraduate students determine
whether text has been plagiarised? Psychological Record,
47(1), 113-122.

Walker, A. L. (2008). Preventing unintentional plagiarism:
A method for strengthening paraphrasing skills. Journal
of Instructional Psychology, 35(4), 387-395.

Zimitat, C. (2008). Student perspective of plagiarism. In
T. S. Roberts (Ed.) Student plagiarism in an online world:
Problems and solutions. Chapter II. pp.10-22. Hershey:
Information Science Reference.
Cheryl Kier
Athabasca University
22
Cheryl Kier
23