by Kelly Ann Butterbaugh

After doing research, making note cards and submitting her term paper on time, Straight-A Annie finds herself sitting in the dean’s office.  “Plagiarizing?  How could I have plagiarized when I didn’t copy anything?  Plagiarizing is when someone copies one source word for word, right?” 

Annie is just one of the many student types that English teachers like myself and countless other professors across the nation have caught plagiarizing. In fact, the Center for Academic Integrity reports that as many as 80 percent of college students have admitted to plagiarizing at least once, and University of California officials state that cheating on campus increased approximately 744 percent in a five year span.   Yet, many students like Annie often plagiarize without even realizing it. 

Originating as the Latin word for kidnapper, plagiarius, plagiarism is defined by the Modern Language Association as “the wrongful act of taking the product of another person’s mind and presenting it as one’s own.”  It is not limited to word-for-word copying; plagiarism also includes neglecting to properly cite sources.  Although Annie did not copy an entire source, she did not give proper credit to the sources she used. 

Although she paraphrased – taking learned information from a source and rewording it completely – she is not in the clear. Paraphrasing is an acceptable form of writing, however, without the proper source citation,  she is liable for  inadvertently “stealing” the idea.  In this case, the student may have “accidentally” plagiarized, but her crime still carries a heavy punishment.

 

Stressed-out Sam is a pre-med student who, by the end of the semester, can barely keep up with his work.  While researching his upcoming essay, he finds a site known as a “paper mill” where term papers can be purchased over the Net.  With some hesitation Sam searches the Web site for a paper that matches his topic.  “It’s not stealing if I pay for it,” he reasons.

He faces severe penalties for his actions.  Some colleges distinguish between Stam's “deliberate plagiarism” and Annie's “accidental plagiarism;” some do not.  While accidental plagiarism occurs when a student does not understand the proper way to cite sources or how to correctly paraphrase, what Sam has done is deliberate plagiarism.  He knew what he was doing was dishonest, but he did it anyway. 

Many colleges invoke a failing grade if a student is caught plagiarizing; some colleges have even revoked the degrees of those found to have plagiarized.  Moravian College warns that verified acts of plagiarism will receive “either a grade of zero to the academic work in question or a failing grade in the course in which the violation occurred.”  Meanwhile, in 2002 the University of Virginia nullified the degrees of three students who graduated before their plagiarism accusations were verified. 

In its student handbook, Moravian College clearly defines plagiarism as “the use, deliberate or not, of any outside source without proper acknowledgment.”  It continues to warn that “ignorance on the student’s part of bibliographic convention and citation procedures is not a valid excuse for having committed plagiarism.” While the handbook does explain specifically what constitutes plagiarism as well as what are acceptable research practices, instructors are required to inform their students of their expectations concerning documentation and sources.  Plagiarism has become an integral part of collegiate teaching and has found its way into syllabi and curricula alongside traditional course material.

 

Downloading Dan had been struggling with his psychology paper for a week.  He’d hoped to earn at least a B, but now he sits across the desk from his prof in her office.  She holds a copy of his paper in her hands as she asks him to define key words from its pages.

When he cannot do it, she asks, “Is there something you want to tell me?”

“I found most of that on the Net,” he admits, believing he has done little to damage his credibility.

Dan, in fact, is guilty of plagiarism, even though he believes the information he found on the Net was “free for the taking.”  Whether information is in an e-mail or even on a billboard, it still belongs to someone else. Internet research has added to students’ confusion about documentation.  While hardcopy information found in books and magazine articles makes idea ownership clear to students, the internet is more abstract and the ideas seem to “appear” without authors claiming to own them.  Some students even believe that since they pay for internet access, they have paid for the information and therefore do not need to cite it.

Rutgers University found that 38 percent of surveyed students claimed to have cut and pasted from the internet without citing the sources, plagiarizing.  Rutgers University also found that the internet plagiarism rate among the surveyed students rose from 10% in one year to 38% the next year, proving that internet plagiarism is quickly rising. Meanwhile, Education Week published a national survey which reported that 54 percent of students admitted to plagiarizing the Internet.

With the variety of internet sources available, documentation becomes confusing for students.  In one writing class at Lehigh Carbon Community College (Schnecksville, PA) 98 percent of documentation errors in research paper drafts were caused by internet sources.  Students attributed most of their errors to confusion about when and how to document web pages and on-line periodicals. 

Another confusion exemplified by the internet the idea of “common knowledge,” information that is so widely known that it does not need to be documented.  Information including common observations, folktales and historical events are considered common knowledge; everything else needs to be documented. 

          Not-so-careful Nora put hours of research into her psychology paper, only to have her paper returned with an F.

            “How could I have failed?  I did all the work, and I even had the librarians help me with the citations,” Nora asked her prof.

            While she cited her sources, her wording was too close to the original.

            “It’s different,” she argued.  “I reordered the opening, and I said ‘in reply’ when the book said ‘in answer to.’”

            What has Nora done wrong?  Despite all of her efforts to create a perfect paper, she inadvertently plagiarized her paper because she didn’t know how to properly paraphrase her information.  Changing one or two words in a sentence does not constitute paraphrasing.

            “Students have the mistaken notion that if they change a word or two in a sentence it’s not plagiarism,” says Susan Woolley, director of publications and editor of the Moravian College Magazine.            Thousands of college students fall into this trap.  Wooley as well as others agree that some students were never taught the skill of paraphrasing, and they believe that by changing a few words they have successfully reworded the information.  Wooley also alludes to those students who know that this is wrong but lack the skills needed to restate the information.

Colleges are spending enormous amounts of time teaching this information to their students.  Lehigh Carbon Community College requires that all students taking Writing I complete a library workbook which hones proper research skills. Many profs include plagiarism as part of their courses, teaching documentation and paraphrasing techniques throughout the semester.  Other colleges offer programs through their writing centers, which help to discourage this “accidental plagiarism.” In 2004 three Moravian College students created a plagiarism workshop for fellow students.  They surveyed their peers as well as faculty at Moravian to identify the root of their school's plagiarism problems and figure out how to solve them. The end result of their survey was that the problem of intentional plagiarism was small in comparison to the confusion over what constitutes theft of another’s work.  Most students lacked the ability to distinguish between proper and improper paraphrasing, believing that reordering the author’s ideas was sufficient when it is not.

 

Plagiarism is a growing problem in the academic community.  Despite profs’ efforts to curb this campus capital offense, the numbers of instances are rising.  It now becomes the students’ responsibilities to learn how to avoid such a crime.   By visiting campus writing centers, meeting with profs one on one, or taking part in research classes, students can attain the writing and research skills needed for success in and out of college.