Plagiarism/Academic Dishonesty
Plagiarism (as a form of Academic Dishonesty) is extremely complicated for teachers
and students alike. Faculty often assume students understand what plagiarism is - or
even that students understand the brief injunctions against it on the syllabus - whereas
most researchers find just the opposite to be the case. Frequently, students are merely
making developmental mistakes as they attempt to appropriate academic discourse. In
defining plagiarism, the links below ask teachers significant questions: Is it plagiarism
if the student does it by mistake or doesn't know better? Is plagiarism the same thing
in all disciplines? How does the Internet complicate our assumptions about the ownership
of text and ideas? And perhaps most important, how should we handle students when the
specter of plagiarism rears its ugly head? Writing Program Administrators suggest that
the best prevention to plagiarism comes in designing assignments for students that resist
the easy lifting of text or ideas from other sources by requiring students to apply
the knowledge they get from sources.
Defining & Avoiding Plagiarism
- Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for
Research Papers (Robert A. Harris)
- Harris focuses here on "strategies of awareness" for teachers and students;
these strategies involve establishing a "mindset" about plagiarism that
both parties can understand. See also Harris's "free anti-plagiarism tips" from
his book The Plagiarism Handbook at Antiplagiarism.com.
- Defining
and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices (Council of Writing
Program Administrators)
- This statement by the WPA offers key definitions of terms (plagiarism, misuse of
sources, etc.), as well as a thoughtful examination of why students may plagiarize
and how teachers can design assignments that eschew plagiarism.
- Plagiarism & Anti-Plagiarism (Heyward
Ehrlich, Rutgers)
- Ehrlich reminds readers, "If plagiarism is to be combated, it must be done
regularly throughout the semester, not just at the end."
- Plagiarism: A Misplaced
Emphasis (Brian Martin, U of Wollongong)
- Site abstract: "Plagiarism is conventionally seen as a serious breach of scholarly
ethics, being a theft of credit for ideas in a competitive intellectual marketplace.
This emphasis overlooks the vast amount of institutionalized plagiarism, including
ghostwriting and attribution of authorship to bureaucratic elites. There is a case
for reducing the stigma for competitive plagiarism while exposing and challenging
the institutionalized varieties."
Links of Interest
- Bibliography of Articles on Plagiarism (Rebecca
M. Howard)
- Electronic Plagiarism
Seminar (Gretchen Pearson, Le Moyne College)
- Preventing Cyber-Plagiarism (Penn
State)
- The New Plagiarism: Seven Antidotes
to Prevent Highway Robbery in an Electronic Age (Jamie McKenzie)
Resources to Share with Students
- Avoiding Plagiarism (Purdue
OWL)
- Avoiding Plagiarism: Mastering
the Art of Scholarship (UCDavis)
- Biology Program
Guide on Plagiarism (U of British Columbia)
- What Is Plagiarism? (Georgetown)
