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."
- The Citation Challenge:
Demystifying APA and MLA (San Francisco State)
- This tutorial will demystify the secrets of the APA and MLA citation
formats and teach you how to cite most commonly used sources faster and
easier with an online citation tool.
- Using Someone Else's
Words: Quote, Summarize and Paraphrase Your Way to Success (San Francisco
State)
- This tutorial will teach you to incorporate someone else’s words
into your own writing. Learn techniques that will help you use another
author's ideas to support and strengthen your paper.
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)
