Walk the Walk the Plank!Plank!Stopping

Intellectual Piracy

Jamie Boston, LMT

Davis Joint Unified School District

“I found your speech to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.”

- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0009039.html

• Is it a problem?

• What is plagiarism?

• Why people plagiarize

• Strategies to combat plagiarism

Agenda

•Detection

•Prevention

•Education

•Policy

• Q&A/ Discussion

Is it a problem?Is it a problem?

According to the Gallup Organization (October 6-9, 2000), the top two problems facing the country today are: 1) Education and 2) Decline in Ethics (both were ranked over crime, poverty, drugs, taxes, guns, environment, and racism, to name a few). http://plagiarism.org/plagiarism_stats.html

How Big a Problem Is This?How Big a Problem Is This?

In one focus group of students from high achieving high schools in New Jersey, a girl stated: “It’s almost a big deal if you don’t cheat.”

Lathrop and Foss, 2000, p. xi

http://www.guampdn.com/guampublishing/vibeextreme/vibenov2002/art/cheating(photo).jpg

How Big a Problem Is This?How Big a Problem Is This?A 2005 a survey of 18,000 high school

students showed that..

Over 70% of the respondents admitted to one or more instances of serious test cheating and over 60% admitted to serious cheating on written assignments.

Over half of the students admitted they have engaged in some level of plagiarism on written assignments using the Internet.

Center for Academic Integrity

How Big a Problem Is This?How Big a Problem Is This?

The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next (Free Press, July 1996) states that 58.3% of high school students let someone else copy their work in 1969, and 97.5% did so in 1989.http://plagiarism.org/plagiarism_stats.html

Kid’s Health

http://www.cyh.com

How Big a Problem Is This?How Big a Problem Is This?

4 out of 5 high achievers surveyed in 1998 admitted to cheating on school work according to publishers of Who's Who Among American High School Students.

Sandsmark (2000)

http://tutorials.sjlibrary.org/plagiarism/

What is plagiarism?

According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means:

1. to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own.    2. to use (another's production) without crediting the source. 3.  to commit literary theft. 4. to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

What is plagiarism? What is plagiarism? (student version)(student version)

Cheating: “If you had any help that you don’t want your teacher or parents to know about, you probably cheated”

Lathrop and Foss, 2000, p. 116

Plagiarism: “If you didn’t think of it and write it all on your own, and you didn’t cite (or write down) the sources where you found the ideas or words, it’s probably plagiarism”

What is plagiarism? What is plagiarism?

Did you know the word plagiarism comes from the Latin plagiarius meaning "kidnapper“?

http://tutorials.sjlibrary.org/plagiarism/tutorial/introduction.php

Why do people plagiarize?• Ignorance• Pressure/fear• Lack of confidence• Academic demands• Perceived lack of consequences • It’s easy

Why do people plagiarize?

• Boredom/lack of interest• Laziness• Competition• Arrogance• Cultural differences• The “challenge”

http://www.newu.uci.edu/archive/1998-1999/fall/981012/np-981012-cheating.jpg

Web sites that allow Web sites that allow students to download workstudents to download work

• http://bignerds.com/ (actual free papers, no registration)• http://www.studyworld.com/ (actual free papers, no

registration)• http://www.digitaltermpapers.com (actual free papers, no

registration)• http://www.instant-essays.com (actual free papers, no

registration)• http://www.allfreeessays.com• http://www.schoolsucks.com/ (says it is free but isn’t)• Try a search by file type (.doc) using Google• Just type “free essays” into any search engine.

How can you prevent it?

• Policy• Education• Detection• Prevention

Policy

Included in the Davis JUSD Acceptable Use Policy are the following provisions:

“You will not plagiarize works that you find on the Internet. Plagiarism is taking the ideas or writings of others and presenting them as if they were yours.

You will respect the rights of copyright owners in your use of materials found on, disseminated through, or posted to the Internet. “

DJUSD Student Internet/Network Safe and Responsible Use Agreement, section D, 3.

Sample Academic Integrity Sample Academic Integrity Policies:Policies:

Middle SchoolsMiddle Schools

• Huntington Middle School (CA): Cheating Policy http://henry.san-marino.k12.ca.us/~heh/BinderReminder/discipline.html

• Webb School of Knoxville (TN): Middle School Honor Code http://www.webbschool.org/today/academics/middle/

Lathrop and Foss, 2000, p. 104

Sample Academic Sample Academic Integrity Policy:Integrity Policy:

High SchoolsHigh Schools• Citizens’ High School (FL): CHS Honor System

http://www.citizenschool.com/honor.htm

• Langley High School (VA): Honor Code http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/LangleyHS/saxon/honor.html

• Webb School of Knoxville (TN): Upper School Honor Code http://www.webbschool.org/today/academics/upper/philosophy.asp

Lathrop and Foss, 2000, p. 105

                                                                                              

E

D

U

C

A

T

I

O

N

Education

1. Clearly define plagiarism.

2. Clearly state the consequences.

3. Provide clear examples of paraphrasing vs. plagiarism.

4. Provide citation style sheets.

Education

Make sure that faculty members know that it is also their responsibility. Ethical research is in their standards too, not just ours.

Example – 4th grade Lang. Arts

Writing Standard 1.5: Quote or paraphrase information sources, citing them appropriately.

California Dept. of Education, 1999.

Detection

• Speak with the student

• Ask student to summarize research and process

• Review bibliography

• Intent?

• Be careful not to unjustly accuse

• Still unsure…

Still unsure?

Search the Web for matching hits. Give a vocabulary “test” based on the

assignment. Make a copy of a section of the report.

Cut the section into paragraphs, and have the student reassemble it. (If the student wrote it, the student should be able to organize it again).

Still unsure?

Writing Style Does Not Change Overnight

www.umoncton.ca/leblanfn/ fig/einstein.gif http://virtual.clemson.edu/caah/shakespr/

Compare writing samples.

I Don’t Think So!

Still unsure?

Have the student read aloud a paragraph with unusual vocabulary or scholarly terms and note the fluency of the reading; students usually don’t use unfamiliar sentence construction or write words they don’t know.

Still unsure?

• Proceed with caution

• Familiarize yourself with district policies and procedures

• Document concerns, collect proof

• Determine your intent - punish or teach?

• Determine the student’s intent

An Anti-Cheating Site:An Anti-Cheating Site: http://www.plagiarism.org/

This site acts as a clearinghouse for educators fighting Internet plagiarism. (Educators can get a free trial service of five documents, so give it a try!)

Dr. Barrie, one of the founders of the site, says that 30% of all the papers they screen are not original work.

“Catching Internet cheaters is not the best answer. Its a lot like doing an autopsy. No matter how terrific the coroner is at determining how or why a person died, the damage has been done. Bringing the culprit to light won’t change that. Preventing the problem is a much better approach.”

Renard (2000)

A Fence or an Ambulance

Prevention is the key• Discuss plagiarism as an ethical issue.

• Educate students about intellectual property and copyright. There is a tutorial at: http://tutorials.sjlibrary.org/plagiarism/index.htmand another at http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_understand_plagiarism_1/0,6622,427065-,00.html

Prevention is the key•Model the behavior in your own work and materials. Have you noticed my citations?•Repeat the information often.•Inform students of consequences.

www.schoolibrary.org

Prevention is the keyTeach students about authorship conventions and

about how to avoid plagiarism1. Create a climate of involvement and interest

rather than of detection and punishment (Carroll, 2000).

2. Teach the skills of summarising and paraphrasing (Carroll, 2000).

3. Teach the skills of referencing and citation.

Prevention is the key4. Include mini-assignments in daily work

that require students to demonstrate skills in summarising, paraphrasing, critical analysis, building an argument, referencing and/or citation.

5. “Design out” the easy cheating options, for example, using the same essay/prac questions year after year (Carroll, 2000). Make the assignment unique to your course (Harris, 2004).

6. Avoid assignments that ask students to collect, describe and present information as these are more prone to plagiarism than those that ask for analysis or evaluation (Carroll, 2000).

7. Ensure assessment tasks relate to the specific content and focus of the subject (and therefore the students) so students are less tempted to simply copy something from the web.

Prevention is the key

8. Set the assignment specification on a unique or recent event on which there is unlikely to be much material available (Culwin & Lancaster, 2001).

9. Use essay/assignment topics that integrate theory and examples or use personal experience (Carroll, 2000). For example, a field trip report, or a personal reflection on a task.

Prevention is the key

10. Use assignments that integrate classroom dynamics, field learning, assigned reading and classroom learning (Gibelman, Gelman and Fast, 1999).

11. Use alternatives to the standard essay, such as project based learning, which present more difficulties in locating suitable material to plagiarise (Culwin & Lancaster, 2001).

Prevention is the key

12. Assign work to be produced in class, possibly with preparation allowed beforehand, to reduce the opportunities to plagiarise (Culwin & Lancaster, 2001).

13. Ask students to make brief presentations to the class based on their written assignments (Gibelman, Gelman and Fast, 1999).

Prevention is the key

14. Require submission of early drafts (outlines, note cards,bibliography, generation of ideas). (Harris, 2004)

15. Ask students to supply photocopies of any references used as part of an appendix (or to have such an appendix available). This guarantees that their references are genuine (Culwin & Lancaster, 2001).

Prevention is the key

16. Make use of collaborative work in subjects with large student numbers and common assignments. Ensure that both the criteria for assessing group work and the difference between collaboration and copying are transparent and clearly understood.

Prevention is the key

17. Ask students to work on a task in groups but to submit individual assignments. Ensure the division between collaboration and collusion is clear – give examples of each. Have a mechanism in place to account for ‘shirkers’.

Prevention is the key

18. Require specific components for resources. For example: two Internet sources, two printed book sources, two journal sources, an interview. (Harris, 2004)

19. Collect an annotated bibliography before the submission is due. This ensures that the students have done some work before the submission date (Culwin & Lancaster, 2001).

Prevention is the key

20. Become familiar with the resources that may be used for plagiarism and let your students know that you know.

Prevention is the key

Aaargh! Walk the

plank!

References

Carroll, J. (November, 2000). Plagiarism: Is there a virtual solution? Teaching News. November. http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/2_learntch/plagiarism.html

Center for Academic Integrity (2003). http://www.academicintegrity.org/cai_research.asp

Culwin, F. & Lancaster, T. (2001). Plagiarism, Prevention, Deterrence & Detection. Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, South Bank University, U.K. http://www.ilt.ac.uk/resources/Culwin-Lancaster.htm

English, S. (1999). Not cheating, just chatting. The Australian, (25th August), p. 40.

Evans, J. (2000). The new plagiarism in higher education: From selection to reflection. Interactions 4.

http://www.warwick.ac.uk/ETS/interactions/Vol4no2/evans.htm

Gibelman, M., Gelman, S. R., and Fast, J. (1999). The downside of cyberspace: Cheating made easy.

Journal of Social Work Education 35.

Harris, Robert. Anti-Plagiarism strategies for research papers. (2004) http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm

Lathrop, A. and Foss, K. (2000). Student cheating and plagiarism

in the Internet era: A Wake-Up call. CO: Libraries

Unlimited.

Renard, L. (2000). Cut and Paste 101: Plagiarism and the Net. Educational Leadership 57, (4), pp. 38-42.

Sandsmark, Fred. (Jan 2000 )TechWeek: "Your Cheatin' Heart Doesn't Stand a Chance" www.techweek.com.

“What is plagiarism?” Tutorial. http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_understand_plagiarism_1/0,6622,427065-,00.html

"I think that some of the assignments are just asking for students to plagiarise” (Anonymous student)