How to Stop Plagarism
Ensuring that students understand course material and can clearly explain key concepts is an important responsibility. It can be challenging to assess learning when students provide plagiarized material as their own work. Whether the plagiarism is accidental or habitual, allowing these offenses to continue adversely affects the educational process. Learning how to identify and stop plagiarism can help ensure students know how to process information and draw realistic, original conclusions. It can also help ensure students understand and adhere to basic journalistic principles.
Instructions
-
-
1
Educate yourself about the various forms of plagiarism. Although most students easily correlate plagiarizing with simply copying another writer's words, people plagiarize material in a variety of ways. Examples include "forgetting" to include adequate footnotes, paraphrasing by changing only a few words and filling an entire paper with citations. Learning the different methods of plagiarism can make you more successful at detecting it.
-
2
Give students a concrete definition of plagiarism. Provide quick reference cards, which include an "original" passage along with examples of the different forms of plagiarism. Ask students to review the cards and ask any questions pertaining to your expectations of what constitutes original work. Requesting that students sign a writer's agreement that forbids plagiarism helps eliminate excuses and promotes greater writer responsibility.
-
-
3
Teach useful strategies to avoid plagiarism. Demand that students properly cite sources and include this information with each applicable assignment. Emphasize the importance of originality over merely repeating information from another author. Let students know that their work doesn't need to be on the level of George Orwell or Maya Angelou to be acceptable.
-
4
Establish strict penalties for confirmed acts of plagiarism. Taking a firm stance against plagiarism discourages students from taking the easy way out of completing assignments. Emphasize that plagiarism is stealing and that you won't tolerate this in your class. Let students know that you're fully aware of the many ways students try to beat the system, including Internet sites that specialize in this practice.
-
5
Employ technology and organization in the war against plagiarism. Using a plagiarism-detection tool to check each assignment you grade can help you spot intentional and incidental plagiarism. Software programs such as CopyScape and Turnitin can help you detect plagiarism. Keeping up with online sites that provide ghost-written assignments for students helps you stay alert. Storing copies of completed assignments can alert you to self-plagiarism, as well as overt attempts to turn in previously completed work.
-
1
Tips & Warnings
Vary your lesson plan to include coursework such as timed essays, oral presentations and short-answer quizzes. This helps ensure students are using their own words and thoughts.
Requiring that papers include a standard amount of references helps students sharpen their research skills and discourages plagiarism.
Showing students a paper you ordered from an online provider can dissuade students from testing their limits.
Avoid making unfounded accusations of plagiarism. Asking a student to produce his research sources, or to provide a spontaneous overview of his paper, can help you handle cases of suspected plagiarism more effectively.
