Internet
Plagiarism: Strategies for Teachers
Ashley S.
Moss-Pham
A Note to the Reader: As most teachers are well aware, we are a
long way from the culture of the one-room schoolhouse – a culture in
which the intimate knowledge of our students’ communities and families
was the rule rather than the somewhat anonymous and impersonal settings in
which we teach today. Under those very different cultural circumstances,
teachers could expect that honesty and academic integrity were the norm among
their students. Unfortunately, under present circumstances, and especially with
the advent of the powerful technology we call the Internet, such expectations
would be ill-founded. In this brief introduction to the issue of Internet
plagiarism and strategies for circumventing it, I will outline the scope of the
problem faced by educators today; some suggested strategies to prevent the
problem from occurring in the first place, and some online services available
to help detect and prosecute plagiarism when it does occur.
I.
Nature
and Scope of the Problem1[1]
A. Included here are some alarming statistics regarding
the direction in which our culture, academic and otherwise, is moving:
i.
Whereas 58.3
percent of high school students let someone else copy their work in 1969, 97.5
percent allowed the practice in 1989 – The State of
ii.
In a
Turniton.com test conducted in April-May, 2000, 30 percent of a large sampling
of
iii.
According to
Gallop poll surveys conducted as recently as October of 2000, the top two
problems facing the country today are education and a decline in ethics.
B. So, why do so many students engage in Internet
plagiarism, according to those who have researched the subject?
i.
They want to
maintain high GPA’s
ii.
They are
technologically more sophisticated than many of their teachers and therefore view it as a low
risk activity
iii.
They are under
tremendous pressure to succeed (here defined as getting into a good college
iv.
The ease and
sophistication of their use of internet resources makes this form of plagiarism
very tempting
v.
Since a high
number of their classmates engage in this behavior, they feel pressured into it
to remain competitive or simply don’t view it as unacceptable behavior by
today’s norms
vi.
They don’t
fully understand what plagiarism is
II.
Remedies
to the Problem[2]
- Talk to students openly and frequently about all
forms of plagiarism, including electronic. Don’t wait until the end
of term to initiate such discussion
- Devise your assignments and research projects in
such a way as to discourage the use of internet plagiarism either in the
form of cutting and pasting from different sources or the outright
purchase and submission of a ready-made term paper. Here are some specific
tips for doing so:
i.
Provide an
extensive list of specific topics from which students can choose. This practice
makes it more likely that the student will find a topic which truly interests
him or her.
ii.
Change your list
of topics as frequently as possible (i.e., from semester to semester or year to
year)
iii.
Require specific
resources in the paper – e.g., two internet sources; two book-length
print sources; two print articles, etc. Such requirements make it much harder
for students to submit “pre-fab” papers
iv.
Require students
to submit documents related to the research process at intervals along the way
– e.g., topic proposal; outline; note cards; drafts, etc. Such
requirements make it impossible to submit a purchased paper or one
“borrowed” from another student.
v.
Require most
references to be up-to-date since many of the paper mills on the internet will
use older sources of information
* Note: these remedies and
strategies for prevention are just a few of the excellent ideas offered by
Robert Harris in the source cited below. For information, click on the title of
the article below.
III.
Fighting
Fire with Fire: The High Tech
Solutions to High Tech Cheating
- The Student Friendly/ Preventive Solutions
i.
Plagiarism and
Academic Integrity at Rutgers
http://scc.rutgers.edu/douglass/sal/plagiarism/intro.html
ii.
The Lemonade
Tutorials http://www.coedu.usf.edu/~dorn/Tutorials/lemonade.htm
- The Student Unfriendly or Post Hoc Solutions
i.
Eve2: Essay Verification Engine
http://www.canexus.com/
ii.
Turnitin.org
http://www.turnitin.com/static/index.html