Detecting and Handling Plagiarism
Scott E. Siddall
Denison University

Roadmap
Definition and forms of plagiarism
What fosters plagiarism
What discourages plagiarism
Methods for detection
Discussion on handling plagiarism

“The” Book on Plagiarism
   Authored by Jim Davis, Department of English, Denison University

Plagiarism may seem simple…
   “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own”
[from the OED]

Plagiarism is complex…
Ideas drawn from many resources – research
Ideas drawn from one - plagiarism

Plagiarism is complex…
Directly plagiarized work
Verbatim or nearly so without citation
Self-plagiarism
resubmit previous work without permission
Mosaic plagiarism
“patch writing”
short quotations and phrases lacking attribution
Accidental plagiarism
forgotten citation
Oral plagiarism
less likely to cite

Example2
     “Contrast the condition into which all these friendly Indians are suddenly plunged now, with their condition only two years previous: martial law now in force on all their reservations; themselves in danger of starvation, and constantly exposed to the influence of emissaries from their friends and relations, urging them to join in fighting this treacherous government that had kept faith with nobody--neither with friend nor with foe.”1
     1Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes (New York: Harper & Bros., 1881):178
     Only two years later, all friendly Sioux were suddenly plunged into new conditions, including starvation, martial law on all their reservations, and constant urging by their friends and relations to join in warfare against a treacherous government that had kept faith with neither friend nor foe.
     [This is direct plagiarism]
        2 Examples taken from the College of Wooster’s Political Science Independent Study Handbook, http://www.wooster.edu/polisci/IS_handbook.pdf

Example
     “Contrast the condition into which all these friendly Indians are suddenly plunged now, with their condition only two years previous: martial law now in force on all their reservations; themselves in danger of starvation, and constantly exposed to the influence of emissaries from their friends and relations, urging them to join in fighting this treacherous government that had kept faith with nobody--neither with friend nor with foe.”1
     1Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes (New York: Harper & Bros., 1881):178
    According to Jackson, the Sioux were now on the verge of starvation. Martial law was now in force on all their reservations. Friends and relatives urged them to join in the fighting against the Federal Government--a "treacherous government that had kept faith with neither friend nor foe.”1
    [Better but not  adequately reconceptualized; Jackson not attributed for all the paragraph]

Example
     “Contrast the condition into which all these friendly Indians are suddenly plunged now, with their condition only two years previous: martial law now in force on all their reservations; themselves in danger of starvation, and constantly exposed to the influence of emissaries from their friends and relations, urging them to join in fighting this treacherous government that had kept faith with nobody--neither with friend nor with foe.”1
     1Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor: A Sketch of the United States Government’s Dealings with Some of the Indian Tribes (New York: Harper & Bros., 1881):178
     According to Jackson, the Sioux were now suffering starvation, martial law and gratuitous advice. Hunger and military oppression made more provocative and strident advice of their historical allies that the Sioux add their might to war against the Federal  government--a "treacherous government that had kept faith with nobody--neither with  friend nor with foe.”1
    [Properly cited because of opening phrase, footnote and quotes for verbatim passage]

What fosters plagiarism?
Digital “cut & paste” mentality
Procrastination – take a short cut
Paper mills on the web – so many!
Local black market for papers
Simple citation errors and omissions
No information on attribution, especially with media content
Sloppy note-taking
The peer-to-peer software experience (e.g., music sharing)

What discourages plagiarism?
Discussion of the issues, education
Close student-faculty work
Honor codes, signed policy statement
Modeling appropriate behavior
Meaningful assignments
Writing for a wider (web) audience
Ex: Can the Earth Afford to Feed You?

Methods of detection
For-fee services
Turnitin.com and
iThenticate.com

Methods of detection
Web-based requiring digital submission
Can plug into course management systems
Submissions are stored leading to some intellectual property questions

Slide 14

Methods of detection
Free services
Google
Some are gathering points for paper mills
Selection of content to submit
Statistically improbable phrases
Novel semantic/similarity searches
Watch the impact of the Google Library Project
Most importantly: faculty awareness of students’ writing skills and the discipline

Resources
Self-test on plagiarism
http://leeds.bates.edu/cbb/quiz/index.html
List of paper mills online
http://www.coastal.edu/library/presentations/mills2.html
Colby-Bates-Bowdoin plagiarism site
http://leeds.bates.edu/cbb/
The Center for Academic Integrity
http://www.academicintegrity.org/
Avoiding Plagiarism – from the Purdue Online Writing Lab
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html
Teaching about Plagiarism in a Digital Age
http://www.ncte.org/pubs/chron/highlights/122871.htm

Notes from our open discussion
The 2 AM desperation + Internet ease of access is tempting!
Don’t give open ended assignments
Always related to material in course
If the assignment is “open,” students should follow defined steps
Reduces late night desperation
Gives instructor more sense of know what is appropriate
Avoid assigning papers on classic topics
Compare three texts, or compare specific parts of a text
Save classic text questions for an exam
Do I have to come up with good questions each year?  Discipline-based question pools may help, but all will eventually be exposed
Require drafts and teach students how to revise their writing
An example: unwriting a digital text into handwritten draft since a draft was required

Notes from our open discussion
Connect assignments to current media and publications
Tie paper topics to class sessions
Often the plagiarized paper is poorly done anyway…but the question remains: is there academic dishonesty involved?  If judicial process follows, we must be clear.
A frequent case: student reads the paper but paraphrases/borrows without doing the hard work to reconceptualize the work themselves.  Changing a word or two isn’t sufficient
Faculty are skillful at detecting professional phrases that often appear in plagiarized work
Survey from Center for Academic Integrity: 70% of students reported they cheated

Notes from our open discussion
Do students understand intellectual theft?
All papers (1st year and beyond) should be based on “real research.”  We should avoid lumping this complex experience into a single capstone research paper
Need to repeat these lessons; not just in First Year Studies classes.
Standardize the expectations for students throughout their undergraduate life
Assign work based on print-only materials (journal back issues that are not online)
Need definitions of common knowledge and what can be referenced without attribution

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