As a teacher, you’ve heard the phrases, “It’s not cheating!” or “But everybody does it!” when it comes to plagiarism. Using phrases, paragraphs or even entire papers that were taken from the internet is now a common practice among upper elementary, secondary and college students. A recent survey found that 89% of secondary students admitted to plagiarizing. How do you combat this, and teach students that plagiarism is not only cheating, it’s also lying because they are taking credit for someone else’s work?
Why do students
plagiarize?
v They find themselves ‘under the gun’ because of poor planning or poor time management
v They have poor writing skills, and even poorer self-confidence in their ability to provide a product that the teacher will accept
v They enjoy the ‘thrill’ of getting away with something, in this case cheating
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism is
using others’ ideas and words without clearly acknowledging the source of that
information. Elementary and middle school students who plagiarize usually have
taken phrases or paragraphs out of an article or text without paraphrasing, or
without using quotation marks appropriately.
Often this is because they’ve never been taught that this is wrong.
How can we prevent
plagiarism?
One of the best ways to prevent plagiarism is to be proactive. Many elementary and middle school students do not know what plagiarism is, or realize they are plagiarizing work when they ‘borrow’ from it. How can you help your students?
v Teach directed lessons which define plagiarism
v Give students examples showing the difference between paraphrasing information and plagiarizing it
v Teach the correct way to cite quotations, and how to give credit to the author
v Demonstrate how you as a teacher can detect plagiarized work.
Where can we get more
information to help us teach students about plagiarism?
Listed below are sites to help you teach about plagiarism. They give definitions, examples, and lesson ideas for you to use.
http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan02/lincoln.htm
http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm
http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml#strategies
http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/~janicke/plagiary.htm