Approaches to tackling plagiarism
amongst international students:
Deploying weapons of mass destruction or
preventing collateral damage?
Janette Ryan
9 June 2011
Problems expressed in assessing the work of
international students are common, with staff
becoming aware of the different learning styles and
academic traditions of some international students.
Assessment is also a difficult experience for these
students, for whom the types of academic
performance they were previously rewarded for can
be penalised for not being independent or critical,
and sometimes regarded as plagiarism.
Ryan, J. (1996). Equal opportunities in the curriculum: A good
practice guide, p. 19. Oxford: Oxford Brookes University.
Student A
Student B
• Local student
• Copied journal
article in entirety
• Interviewed by
phone
• Admitted offence
• ‘Extenuating
circumstances’
• Not on register
• Allowed to re-submit
• Chinese
• Several words
copied from Internet
• Formal interview
• Unable to answer
allegations
• Broke down
• Distressing for all
• Had to repeat
module
Interview questions (Students)
• Recount episode: was allegation reasonable, knew was
plagiarism, why they did/why didn’t know, what led to
this, expect to get caught, intentional or unintentional,
contributing factors or pressures
• Understanding: of plagiarism, of ‘your own work’, use of
electronic sources, how referenced
• Support: information or guidance in course or module,
what should be provided
• Incidence: how many plagiarise, reasons, intentional or
unintentional, how often students get caught
Interview questions (Staff)
• Recount episode: Intentional or unintentional, aware was
plagiarism/why not, influencing factors
• Understanding: of plagiarism, ‘their own work’, allow
electronic sources, issues involved
• Support: information or guidance provided in course or
module, what else might help
• Incidence: how many, reasons, intentional or
unintentional, how often they think students get caught
Student responses
• Fear and confusion – high stakes
• Unclear boundaries between paraphrasing and
plagiarism and conflicting advice
• Feedback focuses on what is wrong not what
was required
• Emphasis on containment and punishment
• Seen as guilty and having to prove their
innocence
• Dismissive views of different academic practices
especially for the international
students, it’s a sensitive issue,
actually they don’t do plagiarism, but
for the very beginning of their study,
trying to avoid plagiarism is a difficult
task for them. Especially in
Bangladesh, actually, we don’t
concerned about this sort of thing
(Postgraduate Male Education
student)
I myself have been
‘convicted’ (nervous laugh)…
I took some information from
the Internet, because it is
another language, it’s
actually my fourth one… I
was thinking that was kind of
weird because I got into a lot
of trouble for taking six words
out of the Internet.
(Female Postgraduate
Student, Education)
(the tutor) said that I’d put in so many
quotes, um, she thought that I didn’t
understand it …the reason I put so many
quotes in I was so afraid of writing
something, um, even rewording it because
it wasn’t my own idea…I was paranoid
about being caught up in plagiarising, and
then because I’d done all this quoting I got
called up for plagiarising … I was
terrified…
(3rd Year Male Arts student)
I understand that that person had to do their job,
but I’m here to basically give an insight as what
was going on in my world… I didn’t put it in my own
words and yes, I admit I’m guilty, but I was just a
little upset as to how I felt. Well I cried for four
weeks after… and I don’t cry easily. And um I did
feel like a criminal. I did. I did.. It was the worst
Christmas I ever had. And then this person said
she’s, they are going to check my other work and,
I’m thinking “Oh goodness!” You know, I’m going to
be expelled, I’m this and that, it was just horrible. It
was just horrible.
(3rd Year Female Arts student)
Staff responses
• Fear and confusion – an emotional issue
• Extra work, pressure to re-mark, fear of reflecting
on themselves, fear of not being supported, lack
of confidence in university’s procedures,
deliberate resistance
• Ambiguous boundaries between ‘cut and ‘paste’,
patch writing or plagiphrasing
• Inconsistent approaches - many deal with
plagiarism in their own ways
• Differences across disciplines and between
individuals
Some academics … see this plagiarism
issue in relation to international students
as one way of signaling through their
discontent with the changes that have
occurred to, ah, academia over the last
10 or 15 years so again it’s, er, just a
suspicion I have. .. We take these people
on and then we, I mean they don’t have
the skills, we know they don’t have the
skills and then we expect them to live up
to these other ethical standards. I think
there’s a double standard going on there.
(Male, Lecturer, Arts)
we’re supposed to report everything
even if it’s unintentional plagiarism, I’m
reluctant to do that to be perfectly
honest because they do have their name
in a book so to speak…Faculty policy is
much harder than I usually treat it… I
might be a bit of a mug for doing that.
(Female, Lecturer, Arts)
[what] is very common in my
experience is the ‘desperation’
plagiarism. It’s the um, you know,
students panic, they get close to the
assessment deadline…their lives
are very complicated, there’s a
bunch of stuff on the web and it’s
just too easy in a way, it’s just too
easy (Male, Professor, Arts Faculty)
[these are] matters that I find
extremely unpleasant to do, having
to talk to people as though they’re
criminals. He seemed to be unable
to communicate about it, very silent.
Um, obviously trying to stifle um an
emotional reaction as you know
Chinese ah A- Oriental people try to
do…he was trying to keep a brave
face but he was just speechless and
ah I just felt so badly for him.
(Female, Senior Lecturer, Arts)
Students’ words
terrifying, scared, fear, devastated,
intimidating, paranoid, confusing, being
‘convicted’, feeling like a criminal
Staff’s words
time-consuming, arduous, burdensome,
frustrating, unpleasant, disturbing
Over-representation of IS?
• Not generally borne out by research
• Easier to detect (not just the ‘tone’ but the ‘language;’
changes
• Impact of Turnitin: native speakers more able to break
the string
• May mask other problems – pressure, English language
skills
• Inability to manipulate language and use sophisticated
language – conflated with ability
• Misunderstanding of academic writing conventions
rather than deliberate cheating
• Link to timing and types of assessment (‘desperation’
plagiarism)
Causes
• New academic rules, practices and concepts
• Different views of writing and ‘common
knowledge’
• Assessment tasks and instructions assume
tacit, shared knowledge
• People are ‘blind’ to their own academic
culture and assume it is universal
• Language difficulties (up to10 times longer for
IS to do reading)
Causes (cont’d)
• Previous experiences – examinations/tasks
require students to demonstrate knowledge of
the syllabus
• Internet created unprecedented temptations
to plagiarise
• Textual borrowing is more a problem of writer
development than deliberate academic
dishonesty and may be a necessary
developmental step (Schmitt, 2005)
‘Western’ and ‘Confucian’ notions of
scholarship and learning
• China: Tsinghua, East China Normal, Nanjing,
Harbin Normal, Zhejiang, Sun Yat-sen and
Beijing Language and Culture, Shijiazhuang
Vocational Technology Institute Hebei,
University of Hong Kong
• UK: Oxford, Oxford Brookes, Bristol & Cardiff
US: Columbia, New York & Indiana
Australia: Monash & Charles Sturt
At the moment there’s lots of talk about plagiarism, and how the availability of
‘knowledge’, and even opinions, threatens the traditional skills of independent
thinking and writing. I don’t think we are even close to an adequate appreciation of
this as a challenge. I would be looking for more creative responses to the flood and
exchange of information than to accuse everyone of plagiarism (after all, we headin-the-air literary types pretend we’re quite comfortable with ‘intertextuality’). But I
do share the worries about the erosion of the value of thinking for oneself.
(Fellow, Languages, Oxford)
[Good scholarship] should also acknowledge the achievements of others and this
does not simply mean avoiding outright plagiarism.
(Senior Lecturer, History, King’s College London
‘good’ scholarship should be, first of all, honest in [both] research and study. When
you use other people’s thoughts, words, data and so on, the use should be
acknowledged.
(Professor, Education, Hebei Vocational Technology Institute)
There are commonalities that good scholarship and effective learning share in both
paradigms. An oft-cited belief in China is that the Western paradigm emphasises
critical thinking whereas CHC paradigm emphasises rote learning, memorisation
and breadth of knowledge. I believe that differences exist only amongst individual
scholars whether Eastern or Western. They should not be taken as differences
between the paradigms.
(Assistant Professor, Humanities, BCLU)
Impacts
• Contradictory messages - value cultural
diversity but punish different writing styles
• Punished for practices that were previously
rewarded
• Tendency to over-cite rather than risk
plagiarising
• Inhibits risk-taking and creativity
• Shock at allegations; fear of repercussions
• Devastating affects on confidence and selfesteem
For more information about TIS…
• TIS website
www.heacademy.ac.uk/internationalstudents
• TIS newsletter
internationalisation@heacademy.ac.uk
• TIS/CAPRI/CICIN conference:
Internationalisation of Pedagogy and Curriculum
in Higher Education: Exploring New Frontiers
16 & 17 June 2011
University of Warwick