Helping Students Understand Plagiarism

Understand it yourself:

What is plagiarism? According to Sebranek, Kemper and Meyers it is “the act of presenting someone else’s ideas as your own (256).

o Buying a paper from a research service or term paper mill.

o Turning in a paper from a "free term paper" website.

o Turning in another student’s work without that student’s knowledge.

o Turning in a paper a peer has written for the student.

o Copying a paper from a source text without proper acknowledgment.

o Copying materials from a source text, supplying proper documentation, but leaving out quotation marks.

o Paraphrasing materials from a source text without appropriate documentation.

Teach proper citation, paraphrasing, and quotation techniques.

Talk to students about plagiarism.

Make consequences clear.

What are you looking for?

Check for unusual formatting or formatting that does not match what you require.
Notice any jargon or advanced vocabulary or sentence structure.
Read quotations carefully.
Review bibliography. Are the citations consistent?

What can you do, if you suspect a problem?

Go to the WWW. Search the phrase or sentence.
Browse the following Websites (most of these sites are blocked by MCPS, you may have to browse at home):

Additional Resources for teachers:

Harris, Robert. Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers. Version Date: October 19, 2001 http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm

Hinchliffe, Lisa. "Cut-and-Paste Plagiarism - Preventing, Detecting and Tracking Online Plagiarism."
janicke@alexia.lis.uiuc.edu, May 1998 - http://alexia.lis.uiuc.edu/%7Ejanicke/plagiary.htm

Sebranek, Patrick, et al. Writers Inc. Willington, MA: Write Source, 2001.