“He who writes last
comes off best”-Seneca
Plagiarism and Cheating in the Internet Era
Prof. David A. Salomon
Russell Sage College
“Adam was the only man who,
when he said a good thing, knew
that nobody had said it before
him."
Mark Twain
Defining . . .
• Plagiarism is defined as “appropriating
someone else’s words or ideas without
acknowledgement” (Encyclopedia of
Ethics)
• The word “plagiarism” is derived from the
Latin plagiarius, meaning to kidnap. When
one plagiarizes, he kidnaps someone
else’s baby, stealing their ideas.
Why students plagiarize
Writing and Research Skills
• Lack of research skills
• Problems evaluating Internet
sources
• Confusion between
plagiarizing and
paraphrasing
• Confusion about terminology
• Careless note taking
• Confusion about properly
citing sources
Misunderstanding Key Concepts
• Misconception of plagiarism
• Misconception of intellectual property,
copyright, and public domain
• Misconception of common knowledge
• Perception of any online information as
public knowledge
External Factors
• Pressure from family
• Student ethics and relationship with the
college
• Commodification of knowledge and
education
Internal Factors
• Poor time management and organizational
skills
Cultural Factors
• Culturally based attitudes towards
plagiarism
• Some students do not come to higher
education seeking an education. Instead,
they want a credential that will get them a
job. Learning is not a priority; getting a
good job at graduation is.
• “Get an education . . . Not just a degree!”
Is this important?
• What if:
– Your architect cheated his way through math class.
Will your new home be safe?
– Your lawyer paid for a copy of the bar exam to study.
Will the contract she wrote for you stand up in court?
– The accountant who does your taxes hired someone
to write his papers and paid a stand-in to take his
major tests? Does he know enough to complete your
tax forms properly?
(Lathrop, Ann and Kathleen Foss. Student Cheating and Plagiarism in the Internet Era.Englewood,
CO: Libraries Unlimited, 2000. 87.)
Statistics don’t lie
• A survey of over 63,700 US undergraduate over the course of three
years (2002-2005)--conducted by Donald McCabe, Rutgers
University--revealed the following:
– 36% of undergraduates admit to “paraphrasing/copying few
sentences from Internet source without footnoting it.”
– 38% admit to “paraphrasing/copying few sentences from written
source without footnoting it.”
– 14% of students admit to “fabricating/falsifying a bibliography”
– 7% self report copying materials “almost word for word from a
written source without citation.”
– 7% self report “turning in work done by another.”
– 3% report “obtaining paper from term paper mill.”
• In a different study, 73% of students taking online courses admit to
having cheated.
• Any item, including a web site, is
automatically the copyrighted property of
its creator. Therefore, credit must be
given.
• Investigate the specifics of the “Fair Use”
law—resulting from the 1976 Copyright
Law and the infamous Kinko’s case in
1991.
Where are they getting it from?
• In 2005 . . .
• AP Business Wire reported that traffic to
cheating sites exceeded 2.6 million hits per
month
• Paper Mills:
– Cheater.com had 72,000 members with 60,000 hits
per day—and it’s completely free!
– The Evil House of Cheat had 9500 papers in its
databases and reported 4000 visitors per day—with
over 70,000 available essays.
– SchoolSucks.com reported being profitable “from day
one.” Currently, 10,000 people visit the site daily with
2 million page views per month.
What other sources are they using?
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Personal web sites
Online journals and databases
Course pages at other schools
Instructor notes posted to the Internet
Online discussion lists/”listservs”
But don’t forget traditional print
sources as well!
Detecting Plagiarism
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•
•
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A student's paper exceeds his or her research or writing capabilities, sounds
professional or journalistic, or is too scholarly.
The student's paper contains complex or specialized vocabulary, jargon,
technical terms, or other words and expressions beyond what would be
expected from a student at that level.
The quality of writing is inconsistent. For example, the introduction or
conclusion may be poorly written compared to the body of the paper.
The title page, font, references, format, or layout of the paper are
inconsistent.
There are embedded links, page breaks, or incorrect page numbers in the
paper.
The topic of the paper isn't consistent with the assignment, class lectures, or
class handouts.
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The bibliography is odd in some way. For example, it may be long, the style
guide used for the bibliography is different from the one used in class, the
citations are all from older sources, or few or none of the materials
referenced can be accessed in the library.
There are links or URLs at the top or bottom of the paper or greyed out
letters or areas.
As a general rule, follow your instincts. Most professors can gauge what
level their students are at.
The references are all from books not available at your school, or are all
from another country
“This one works a little better on recycled papers than it does on Internet
papers, at least in some cases, but a good sign of a plagiarized paper is
that all the references in the bibliography are at least five or ten years old. I
recall one case when I was in graduate school (in 1993) that had no
references from after 1978; the paper also referred to ‘President Carter’ in
the present tense.”
Stephen Schmidt (schmidsj@union.edu) Union College
• “If an essay/composition does not require
a bibliography, it is a ‘give away’ if the
student's composition/essay is beyond or
does not reflect the student's grade level,
OR, it has no or very few English--spelling,
syntax, etc.--errors contained within it.”
from Plagiarized.com user, Jauhara
Care
Prevention?
• Talk openly with students about plagiarism. Define it
clearly and give clear examples.
• Obtain a sample of the student's in-class writing at
the start of a semester in order to have a basis for
comparison if plagiarism is later suspected. Retain
that writing sample in your office files.
• Discuss copyright laws and the Internet.
• Teach bibliographic citation: MLA, APA, Chicago
Manual.
• Structure a research assignment so that various
stages are due at different times. Confer with
students about their progress.
• Require students turn in a thesis statement/abstract,
annotated bibliography, outline, rough draft, and
photocopies of cited references.
• Consider having students use a note-taking method
whereby black text signifies ideas of others while
green text represents fresh thinking or the new ideas
of the student.
• Have students keep a journal or reflect on their
progress in completing a major assignment. Let them
consider the effectiveness of their final product and
the efficiency of the research process.
• Discourage projects that ask students to simply
gather facts about a topic. Prefer projects that require
analysis, explanation, and problem solving.
• Emphasize essential questions—questions worth
asking that touch upon basic human issues or lie at
the heart of a discipline. Encourage students to ask
their own questions and formulate their own answers.
• Send students to materials that help them to evaluate
the usefulness and applicability of all sources, but
especially web sources.
• Not everyone agrees that plagiarism
detection services will eliminate online
term paper sites. Services like turnitin.com
"are proof of the impact that School Sucks
is having," says Kenny Sahr, founder of
schoolsucks.com. "We plan on keeping
those folks at turnitin.com busy."
Schoolsucks.com? Yes.
Academic Cheating
• 80% of the country's best students
cheated to get to the top of their class.
• More than half the students surveyed said
that they don't think cheating is a big deal.
• 95% of cheaters say they were not caught.
• 40% cheated on a quiz or a test.
• 67% copied someone else's homework.
It is no longer this obvious
From blurofinsanity.com
From
blurofinsanity.
com
Prevention?
• A clear honor code
• Clear guidelines for prosecuting cheating
and plagiarism cases
• Clear punishments
• Evidence that rules are being enforced
• Without these, talk about cheating and
plagiarism is just talk
Syllabus Statement
Academic Honesty: Plagiarism is the theft of someone else's ideas and
work. Whether a student copies verbatim or simply rephrases the ideas
of another without properly acknowledging the source, the theft is the
same. In the preparation of work submitted to meet course
requirements, whether a draft or a final version of a paper, project, or
computer program, students must take great care to distinguish their
own ideas and language from information derived from sources.
Sources include published primary and secondary materials, the
Internet, and information and opinions gained directly from other
people. Whenever ideas or facts are derived from a student's reading
and research, the sources must be properly cited. The instructor will
use the College’s subscription to turnitin.com. The course ID is *** and
the password is ***.
It is the student's responsibility to learn the proper forms of citation
according to standards delineated by The Sage Colleges. Students
who have questions about the standards of scholarly writing should
speak with their instructors before beginning research on assigned
papers and projects. Violations include, at the discretion of the
instructor, failure for the individual paper to failure for the course; such
violations may be entered in the student’s permanent academic record,
and upon multiple offenses the Dean may recommend expulsion from
the College.
Professor David A. Salomon
salomd@sage.edu