2. Agenda
What is Plagiarism
How to Avoid Plagiarism
Why Students Plagiarize
Sources of Online Plagiarism
How Faculty Detect Plagiarized Papers
3. What is Plagiarism
Three Types of Plagiarism –
Direct Quotes
Paraphrasing
Unique ideas
4. Direct Quotes
Ifyou use someone
else’s writing without
putting it in quotes,
you have blatantly
plagiarized.
Even if you add the
source in your
bibliography, it is still
plagiarism.
5. Paraphrasing
Becareful about rewriting someone else’s
words. If your sentences use many of the
same words and grammatical structure as
the original source, it could be construed
as plagiarism. Just put the text in your
own words.
6. Original Idea
Give credit to unique ideas others have
thought up.
If you present the ideas of another without
crediting them, you have plagiarized
them.
Obvious ideas, like know facts, don’t have
to be credited.
When in doubt, attribute.
7. Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism
Always put quotes
from text in
quotations. Never
forget to do this as
this is the easiest
way to get
accused of
plagiarism.
8. When Paraphrasing…
Be sure you are not just rearranging or
replacing words.
Rewrite the phrase in your own words and
credit the original source.
Double check what you have wrote by
comparing it with the original writing.
9. Avoid Danger Spots
Don’t surf to paper
mills.
Don’t use the Web
to look for “easy’
paper sources.
Don’t turn in other
students papers as
your own.
10. Why do students cheat?
Some students do
not come to higher
education seeking
an education.
Instead, they want
a credential that will
get them a job.
Learning is not a
priority, getting a
good job at
graduation is.
11. This does not relate to my major...
Some students
resent having to
take courses not
directly tied to
their major. They
see university
general education
requirements as a
waste of their time.
12. GPA’s
Many students feel intense pressure to
maintain a high grade point average.
This can come from friends and family.
Students also feel high grades are
necessary for getting a good job or
getting into the graduate program of their
choice. Plagiarized papers are seen as a
way of keeping the GPA high without all
the work.
13. Self-defense
Otherstudents in the university are
cheating. This may give them an unfair
advantage over students who do not
cheat, particularly if a course is graded on
a curve. Plagiarism in response to the
cheating of others is a way for some
students to level the playing field.
14. I am too busy to write
Some students
plagiarize because
they do not have a
lot of free time.
They may be busy
with heavy class
loads, multiple jobs,
family obligations,
social activities, and
resume building
experiences.
15. Ignorance
Some students
inadvertently
plagiarize from
online sources. They
do not understand
all the rules for
properly using and
citing sources. (“I
cited the web site
didn’t I?)
16. Sources of online plagiarism:
Paper mills
Web sites
Electronic library resources
17. Paper Mills
“Download Your work load!”
Schoolsucks.com
(http://www.schoolsucks.com)
EvilHouse of Cheats
(http://www.cheathouse.com)
18. The price for paper mill papers
Free- Download what you want for free.
The site makes money by selling banner
ads.
Free but registration is required- The site
makes money from banner ads and from
selling membership lists.
Give a paper, take a paper- Again,
banner ads provide site with revenue.
19. More on cost...
Membership Fee- Pay a fee for unlimited
access to full database of papers.
Charge by page- “High” cost sites
charge by the page. If you don’t find
what you need, they will custom write
your paper for a stiff fee.
20. What does the student get?
Dated material
Poor writing
Bad or nonexistent
research
BUT NOT ALWAYS
21. Good papers can come
from a variety of sources.
Old fraternity paper files that have been
digitized.
Students uploading their own papers.
Students uploading the papers of others.
This includes papers that faculty make
available to students as examples of
good papers as well as papers that
students post on their own homepages.
22. Detecting plagiarized papers
Writing style,
language,
vocabulary, tone,
grammar, etc. is
different than what
you expect from the
student.
Different writing
styles, tones,
language, etc. in
different parts of
paper.
23. Web address on page?
Check to see if
there is a web
address at the top
or the bottom of a
page. This
probably means
the paper was
printed with a web
browser directly
from a web site.
24. Copyright notice?
Check to see if any copyright notices are
anywhere in the text of the paper. Also
check to see if any notices similar to “this
free paper brought to you by
Schoolsucks.com” appear anywhere in
the paper. Some students do not read
through all the text before turning it in as
their own.
25. Layout
Isthe page strangely or poorly laid out?
This could mean that the text was
imported into a word processor. The
imported text was originally formatted
differently and the conversion changed
how the page looks. If a student does not
take the time to fix it, the page will look
odd when printed.
26. Graphs or charts?
Does the paper make reference to charts
or graphs that can not be found? Maybe
the originally paper had these items but
subsequent recycling has resulted in the
loss of these items.
27. Inactive web sites
The bibliography of the paper lists web
sites that are no longer active. In the
months (or years) since the paper was
originally written, the web site has died or
has changed web addresses.
28. Dated material
All of the citations in the bibliography are
at least a few years old. Most databases
list the newest citations first when doing a
search. Students also prefer to use new
material for citing in papers. Old citations
may have been new when the paper was
originally written.
29. The past is now
Does the paper make reference to past
events as if they where happening today?
(“I believe that the impeachment
hearings on President Clinton are unfair
and are politically biased. The whole
impeachment process should be stopped
now.”)
30. How to Detect or Google to
the Rescue
Type in a key sentence from the paper as
a phrase search. For example, type “The
students in my LIB 197 class are good.”
Google indexes so many sites that even if
the student didn’t use Google, a phrase
search may find the original source
anyway.
31. More Detection
A good supplement to Google is All the
Web at http://www.alltheweb.com.
There are commercial vendors as well.
They scan papers against known cheat
sites for a fee. This includes Turnitin.com
and Wordcheck.com.
32. Plagiarism Can Kill Careers
Jayson Blair
plagiarized
sources. He also
fabricated stories.
In his 20s, he was
at the top of the
journalism world.
Now he is
disgraced,
unemployed, and
not yet 30.
33. The New Republic
Stephen Glass was a writer for the New
Republic in the 1990s.
He made up stories by inventing people,
organizations, and events.
He also plagiarized other writers.
He was fired and had to go back to
school to find another career. Now he is
a lawyer…
