Plagiarism

1. Plagiarism By Kate Cottle Adapted from James Bradley’s “Plagiarism”

2. Paper #1: what do you think is plagiarized? The problem with today’s schools is too many tests. The tests people have to take all the time so states can find out whose dumb don’t help anyone. The newspaper's analysis finds that more than two in five students (41.5%) earned a failing score of 1 or 2, up from 36.5% in 1999. In the South, a Census-defined region that spans from Texas to Delaware, nearly half of all tests — 48.4% — earned a 1 or 2, a failure rate up 7 percentage points from a decade prior and a statistically significant difference from the rest of the country. Tests just make it so the teachers don’t have to teach that day. That is what is wrong. I think tests are stupid and should be banned.

3. Paper #1 Results

4. Paper #2: what do you think is plagiarized? Computers are important to everyone. There is no job that people can do without computers. Computers used to be rare, but are now much more common. Computers come in a range of varieties and styles like Dell and Macs. As technology continues to change, the use of computers in the workplace continues to increase. Many companies are even in the process of becoming virtually paperless, storing all data only on computers. Understanding how consumers make the decision to purchase a computer is critical. All people are consumers. Everyone buys stuff, even computers. My sister got so excited when she saw hers on Christmas: it was bright pink. Till it got stolen.

5. Paper #2 Results

6. Paper #3: what do you think is plagiarized? There are two major strands to the tobacco control movement's arguments: firstly, that smoking is both offensive and harmful to non-smokers, and that they have a right not to be exposed to smokers' waste gases and debris and secondly, that smoking is harmful to smokers' health, and that therefore children and teenagers should be prevented from starting to smoke and smokers should be motivated to quit smoking for their own protection. It is amazing how most non-smokers see these statements as truths and smokers see them as manipulation of data. While the smokers will say, “Scientists encouraged pregnant women to smoke in the 1950s,” non smokers will say something different. They will cite current studies that show that third-hand smoke (the residue left in clothes) is also dangerous to people, especially infants. Smokers really need to realize that smoking is gross, creates unnecessary medical problems and invades other people’s personal space. Smoking should be heavily taxed enough that smokers pay for their own future medical care. Smokers should also be quarantined so people don’t have to smell their stink.

7. Paper #3 Results

8. Plagiarism Defined • “The wrongful appropriation…and publication as one’s own, of the ideas, or the expression of the ideas (literary, artistic, musical, mechanical, etc.) of another.” • “…to take and use as one’s own the thoughts, writings or inventions of another.” The Oxford English Dictionary Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks. com/Plagiarism

9. Plagiarism Defined • “submitting material that in part or whole is not entirely one’s own work without attributing those same portions to their correct source.” “How to avoid plagiarism” Northwestern University website http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/plagiar.html Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks. com/Plagiarism http://community.tncc.edu/faculty/dollieslager/images/plagiarism_cartoon.jpg

10. Plagiarism Defined • “A student must not adopt or reproduce ideas, words, or statements of another person without appropriate acknowledgment. A student must give credit to the originality of others and acknowledge an indebtedness whenever he or she does any of the following: a. Quotes another person's actual words, either oral or written; b. Paraphrases another person's words, either oral or written; c. Uses another person's idea, opinion, or theory; or d. Borrows facts, statistics, or other illustrative material, unless the information is common knowledge.” “What is plagiarism at Indiana University?” http://education.indiana.edu/~frick/plagiarism/index2.html Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

11. Statistics “Studies of 18,000 students at 61 schools, conducted in the last four years, suggest cheating is also a significant problem in high school – over 70% of respondents at public and parochial schools admitted to one or more instances of serious test cheating and over 60% admitted to some form of plagiarism.” http://www.academicintegrity.org/cai_research/index.php (under construction) Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism http://atempleton.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/f.png http://atempleton.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/f.png

12. Statistics • “According to a survey by the Psychological Record 36% of undergraduates have admitted to plagiarizing written material.” • “A poll conducted by US News and World Reports found that 90% of students believe that cheaters are either never caught or have never been appropriately disciplined.” • “The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next (Free Press, July 1996) states that 58.3% of high school students let someone else copy their work in 1969, and 97.5% did so in 1989. “ http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_facts.html Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

13. Statistics • Research study: “In Other People’s Words: plagiarism by university students-literature and lessons,” C. Park, 2003 • Literature review - N. America • “1986 Haines - more than half self-reported cheating” • “1995 Brown - 80% of graduate business students” • “1996 Diekhoff - Significant rise in cheating (1984 & 1994)” http://www.unf.edu/dept/cirt/newsletters/Jan09/reportcard%20plagiarism%20cartoon.gif http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/gyaccp/ (Chris Parks: “In other (people's) words: plagiarism by university students - literature and lessons” ) Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

14. Statistics • Center for Academic Integrity • Cut and paste plagiarism rose from 10% to 41% from 1999-2001* *The above site, http://www.academicintegrity.org/cai_research/index.php , is under construction Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

15. Groups • Please assemble into groups and answer the first two questions • The group should come up with one answer for each to share, but each participant should have his/her own copy. • Question #1

16. Why Do Students Plagiarize? • High stakes! • Procrastination leads to desperation • Lack of understanding or poor documentation • Cultural / Victimless crime - read and hear about other students/professionals committing • Lack of enforcement – historically http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/gyaccp/ “In Other (People’s) Words: plagiarism by university students - literature and lessons,” C. Park Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

17. Why Do Students Plagiarize? • “Students may view the course, the assignment, the conventions of academic documentation, or the consequences of cheating as unimportant.” • “Teachers may present students with assignments so generic or unparticularized that students may believe they are justified in looking for canned responses.” http://www.wpacouncil.org/node/9 Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism Most Insidious examples of plagiarism (Question #2)

18. Spotting Plagiarism: “Dead Giveaways” • “Essay refers to or cites the lectures of a mystery instructor (from another institution, no doubt).” • “Essay contains a reference to its origin (e.g. "This essay is from www.essays.com - join today!") on the last page. It is very common for students to miss this. “ • “Essay is grade-school quality. The vast majority of essays available on the net have not been written by rocket-scientists.” • “Essay is way off topic. Many of this type have oddly placed "on-topic" paragraphs that the student inserts themselves to bring it more in line with the required subject.” • “Strange/poor layout. Some students paste the essay into their word processor and hit "print" right away. As a result, none of the original author's format-instructions are retained. Page numbers, headings, spacing, and page breaks are all out of whack.” • “The ultimate sign of sloth... The essay has been printed from the student's internet browser. Very Very sad.” http://www.plagiarized.com/deadgive.html Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

19. Spotting Plagiarism: “Dead Giveaways” • “The references are all from books not available in your University, 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. http://www.plagiarized.com/deadgive.html Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

20. When is it not intentional plagiarism? • “Students are not guilty of plagiarism when they try in good faith to acknowledge others’ work but fail to do so accurately or fully. These failures are largely the result of failures in prior teaching and learning: students lack the knowledge of and ability to use the conventions of authorial attribution…” • “Students may not know how to integrate the ideas of others and document the sources of those ideas appropriately in their texts.” • “Students will make mistakes as they learn how to integrate others’ words or ideas into their own work because error is a natural part of learning.” http://www.wpacouncil.org/node/9 Link from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

21. When is it not intentional plagiarism? • “Students may not know how to take careful and fully documented notes during their research.” • “Academicians and scholars may define plagiarism differently or more stringently than have instructors or administrators in students’ earlier education or in other writing situations.” • “College instructors may assume that students have already learned appropriate academic conventions of research and documentation.” http://www.wpacouncil.org/node/9 Link from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

22. When is it not intentional plagiarism? • “College instructors may not support students as they attempt to learn how to research and document sources; … [instructors] fail to appreciate the difficulty of novice academic writers to execute these tasks successfully.” • “Students from other cultures may not be familiar with the conventions governing attribution and plagiarism in American colleges and universities.” • “In some settings, using other people’s words or ideas as their own is an acceptable practice for writers of certain kinds of texts (for example, organizational documents), making the concepts of plagiarism and documentation less…[more] confusing [to] students who have not learned that the conventions of source attribution vary in different contexts.” http://www.wpacouncil.org/node/9 Link from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

23. Groups • Please answer the second two questions. • After five minutes, we will talk about number three and four.

24. Ideas for Prevention • “Organized” Teaching • Introduce ideas and reinforce them more than once over the semester/block • Examples spaced out with practice • “Abstract/ Concrete Connections” • Higher Order Thinking http://dww.ed.gov/topic/?T_ID=19 Slide from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

25. Turnitin.com • Turnitin helps students to see where they have gone wrong with cited sources • Focus is on the students doing self-checks and then having an opportunity to correct • This was recently piloted on campus; we are awaiting results

26. More Ideas for Prevention • Do not assume students know how to research – give them the steps and practice them. • Have students show the work that went into building the paper: outlines, drafts, initial notes, etc. • Discuss problems in sourcing with students to determine whether the plagiarism was intentional or not. (Students are responsible for it whether intentional or not.) • Frequency and length of plagiarized sections will also determine this. http://www.wpacouncil.org/node/9 Link from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

27. Ideas for Prevention • “Rotate your Curriculum” • Having more than one writing or reading assignment will keep things fresh for the instructor and for the students. • Look at the paper mills to see the topics covered there • design an assignment not covered by the paper mills • Assign readings not often in anthologies. • Show students that you know about paper mills • Have students sign a contract that details the Academic Dishonesty Policy. http://www.plagiarized.com/vanb.html Link from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

28. Ideas for Prevention • Many milestones – in a 7 week class, 5 out of 7 • Can be small – one paragraph each, done in class • Students work collaboratively • Group work all along and then individual papers at the end • Save copies of papers • Electronic copies or the first page of paper copies http://www.plagiarized.com/vanb.html Link from James Bradley’s presentation “Plagiarism” http://wilmingtonuniversitywiki.pbworks.com/Plagiarism

29. WU’s Academic Integrity Policy • This procedure covers both intentional and unintentional plagiarism. • Procedures for Violation of the Code of Conduct – Academic Dishonesty • The following procedures are to be used for First Occurrences: • The faculty member, in consultation with the program coordinator of the college in which the course resides, may assign the student(s) a failing grade for the assignment, paper or examination. This is considered the minimum penalty. The faculty member in consultation with the program coordinator may assign the maximum penalty, which is a failing grade for the course. • The faculty member will immediately inform the Dean of the academic college in which the course in question resides of this action. http://www.wilmu.edu/studentlife/acaddishonesty.aspx

30. WU’s Academic Integrity Policy • The Dean shall inform an Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs on the offense who will inform the student in writing that their continued enrollment at Wilmington University is provisional. The Vice President for Student Affairs will receive a copy of this letter. In addition, a student may be required to take the course ENG 365, Academic Writing. • Second Occurrence: • In the event of a repeated occurrence related to academic integrity, the steps from above are to be followed. In addition, a copy of the student’s file related to the first and second offense is submitted to Student Affairs. The Vice President of Student Affairs may take any temporary action deemed appropriate related to suspending the student from University activities and shall convene a meeting of the Student Discipline Committee. http://www.wilmu.edu/studentlife/acaddishonesty.aspx

31. One last thing….Wikipedia Instructors traditionally do not allow use of Wikipedia. Students are using it anyway, but concealing this from Instructors. This article has some interesting information, especially at the end. http://www.cagle.com/working/080624/fairrington.jpg

32. Useful Links • Council of Writing Program Administrators • Plagiarized.com • Wilmington University’s Academic Integrity Policy • Bloom’s Taxonomy • What It Is • Questions for Higher Level Thinking

33. Question Five • Any other tips, hints, or tricks?

34. References • Under Construction