Plagiarism from the Internet
One of my biggest problems comes from students who copy and paste information from the Internet into their assignments, and present the work as their own. Mano of them will cite their sources, which makes it even easier to catch. Ironically, it is the students in our criminal justice program who have done this in my classes. I'm interested in understand the personality types involved here.
Wow, that is surprising. Plagiarism is the WORST offense one can commit at most 4-year schools.
My students seem to think that if you change one word it is no longer plagarism. They forget that the thoughts/ideas are still someone else's and should be cited. With the technology we have today, it is so easy to cite your references. Being from an older generation I am confused. Do most people think if it is on the internet if is fair game, are they confused on how/why to reference, do they just not care? If I could understand why then I would have a better idea how to tackle the problem.
In teaching composition classes, I find that about 30-50% of students plagiarize from the internet. A large part of them do not understand what constitutes plagiarism. My school's library has prepared a handout which details what is and is not acceptable. I make sure to give it out on the first day, and remind students to look through it each time a paper is due. My school also subscribes to TurnItIn.com. Students upload the paper to the website, which compares it to other papers in the database. I then get a report that gives the percentage of the paper that is original thought and the percentage that has been plagiarized. TurnItIn has been a valuable tool in explaining plagiarism to students.
I, too, have had students do that (even without citing). I do think we have to be somewhat careful though and utilize this as a learning experience for our students. Some students, I truly believe, do not know that this is plagiarism. In my own classes, when this has occurred, I have taken the opportunity to discuss this with my student and explain to them how they could appropriately use information from the source. Then I require a resubmission. If they were to do it again after this I would follow the appropriate channels at my university.
Ultimately, though, I think it is easy to be quick and say that they did it intentionally. I think we should just be careful to judge that and take advantage of the teaching opportunity it presents.
In my opinion printing from the internet is obvious cheating, however I am finding my institution does not forbid this type of plagerism.
Hi Patricia,
We can always cite sources. The instructor has to evaluate the situation and make the call as to whether it is cheating or not.
Patricia
This is a form of cheating afterall. I myself have downloaded information for my children and told them to cite it as a source of information. But where do we draw the line with research and out and out copying?
