Jennifer Clagett

SML 521

Worksheets for Instruction

Internet Plagiarism: A Handout for Teachers

As a future teacher, I wanted to understand more about the problem of plagiarism. I've put together this handout for other teachers, in hopes that this will make them more aware of the problem, and give them suggestions for how to handle the issue.

Nature and Scope

Plagiarism have long been a problem that teachers have dealt with. But many teachers have noticed that this occurs more frequently these days. It may be largely due to advances in technologies, such as the internet and other portable devices with web-browsing capabilities. Information is now readily available to our students in the form of online papers and articles to download. As teachers, what can we do to help offset this growing problem?

Remedies

1. Understand how plagiarism occurs. Students can easily download papers off the internet, from paper mills, or other free sites that house research papers. In addition they may copy a paper from somebody they know, someone who has already taken the course. How do we know if a paper has been plagiarized? As teachers, we have a good awareness of our student's abilities. If you suspect a student has copied a paper, you can use a search engine to search for a sample of the text. Other sites such as Turnitin.com offer services (for a fee) that search a student's work for plagiarized text.

2. Talk to your students about plagiarism and cheating. Ask students to define plagiarism in their own terms. Ask them for examples of what they think plagiarism is. Then give them a working definition of plagiarism, and see how they compare. Explain that plagiarism is a serious offense, that they are lying about their own work, and essentially stealing someone else's thoughts and words. Also probe them as to why students may decide to plagiarize. Based on some of the answers you get, you may try to alleviate some of their fears and anxieties.

3. Make sure that your students know how to properly cite material. If you are experiencing a number of issues with students not properly citing ideas, and quotations, it may be that they are not very sure of how to go about doing this. To be on the safe side, make sure that you go over this with them, and continue to give them practice with researching an citations.

4. Explain the consequences. Make sure that students will understand what will happen to them if they plagiarize. Make sure that they know this is considered a serious offence, not only in your classroom, but by the school and the community as well. Go over these with the students, discuss what will happen, and make sure that they know you will enforce these consequences.

Websites for Further Information

Cheating 101: Internet Paper Mills: Coastal Carolina University offers an extensive list of some commercial paper mill sites that charge money for academic papers.

Plagarized.com: Offers information to teachers and parents about how plagiarism occurs, and suggests steps to take when we catch a student in the act.

http://www.plagiarized.com/

Plagiarism.org: Offers information for teachers and students describing what plagiarism is, and ways to ensure that it doesn't occur.

http://www.plagiarism.org/

Turnitin.com: A fee-based service that detects plagiarism in student papers.

http://turnitin.com/static/index.html