From: George Collins 
Subject: Re: [ncte-talk] Plagiarism 

"ON PLAGIARISM"

Detecting research papers and other assignments that have been plagiarized
from web resources is a somewhat new endeavor for teachers who assign
research papers in the 21st century.  As you know, our students have the
entire web at their fingertips.  There are many web sites available that
feature term papers (for fee or free).  Simple "copy and paste" techniques
invite plagiarism.  The acquisition of legitimate and/or un-edited passages
available on the web is quite simple.

As a result, here are some tips and resources for you to turn to when you
expect that a student has plagiarized work from a web resource:

1. Require students to hand in their work in stages.  Have them submit a
topic, with possible sources listed, then some time later, notes showing
sources, an outline, or first draft.  This not only monitors the process,
but also helps students learn to write.  (Paul Heymont, Brooklyn, NY
paul@heymoux.net)

2. www.findsame.com  is a website that can help you detect plagiarism.
You submit an entire document (or part of one), and it returns a list of Web
pages that contain any fragment of that document longer than about one line
of text.  Paste some text in the box, or upload a file by clicking on the
"Browse..." button. Then click the "search" button and they'll show you
where on the Web any piece of that text appears.

3. Jamie McKenzie offers a good article on "avoiding plagiarism" at:
http://emifyes.iserver.net/fromnow/may98/cov98may.html
www.fno.org, by the way, is Mr. McKenzie's site and has many worthwhile
items.  Doing a search for "plagiarism" there will turn up the above
referenced article.
The article's table of contents is:
Introduction: The New Plagiarism
Antidote 1. Distinguish levels/types of research
Antidote 2. Discourage "trivial pursuits"
Antidote 3. Emphasize essential questions
Antidote 4. Require and enable students to make answers
Antidote 5. Focus upon information storage systems
Antidote 6. Stress "green ink" and citation ethics
Antidote 7. Assess progress throughout the entire research process

4. www.plagiarism.org is the online resource for educators concerned with
the growing problem of Internet plagiarism. "This site is designed to
provide the latest information on online plagiarism and explain how our user
portal, Turnitin.com, is now being used by educators all over the world to
fight plagiarism and help bring academic integrity back into our schools.
In this site you will find detailed information on the technologies behind
Turnitin.com, facts about Internet plagiarism, and a report on the growth of
"cheatsites" online. We encourage anyone interested in using our
anti-plagiarism technologies, or any of our other educational tools, to go
directly to Turnitin.com. If you are already a member of the Turnitin.com
academic community and would like to find out more about our history and
proprietary technologies, we invite you to spend some time browsing here at
Plagiarism.org".

5. An article in The Journal of Social Work Education (Winter, 2001, p193),
offers these tips:
? The best prevention approach is education.  Help students develop accurate
and in-depth working definitions of plagiarism.  Most people agree that the
primary problem is that students (and people in general) do not really
understand the meaning of plagiarism.
? Let students know that you know about the paper mill websites.  Check some
of them out and describe them.  Students will be less likely to submit a
plagiarized paper when they know their teacher is aware of web-based
sources.
? Demonstrate how easy it is to copy/cut  and paste information from a
website into a text file or word processor.  Students may be reluctant to do
this without benefit of citation when they understand that their teacher
understands the technology.
? Go a step further and take students to an online paper repository.  Have
students examine a weak paper (there are plenty available) and analyze its
failures.  This can be an opportunity for them to increase their
understanding of critical thinking and poor reasoning.  Three websites that
yield relevant examples include Other People's Papers
(http://www.oppapers.com), The Essay depot (http://www.essaydepot.com) and
Big Nerds (http://papers.bignerds.com).
? Make plagiarism penalties clear.  Include your own plagiarism policy and
those of the school in your syllabus.  Significant factors in reducing
plagiarism are the fear of getting caught and the severity of the
punishment.
? Teach the class to use web-distributed resources and demonstrate proper
citation of electronic resources.  Approach this as a fair use and
intellectual property issue.  This can empower students to use the resources
found on the web in a responsible and unambiguous way.
? Many of the online or purchased papers are quite old and so are their
references.  Geriatric bibliographies are red flags.  Require that
bibliographic references be up to date.  By requiring inclusion of
references that are less than five years old, a teacher automatically
eliminates thousands of online papers.

6. FYI, websites of note that your students may visit:
A. http://realpapers.com
B. http://www.termpaperwarehouse.com/tpw
C. http://cheatfactory.hypermart.net
D. http://www.papergeeks.com
E. http://www.cheathouse.com/uk/peek/list
F. http://www.schoolsucks.com
G. http://www.netcheats.com

7. Web resource citation information is available at:
http://www.bmrsd.net/student_resources/eng-lit.htm



By Brad Monroe
Director of Technology
Blackstone-Millville Regional School District

Web Resource Contributions By:  Ann Kampersal, MES and EdTech Listerv
(March, 2001)

March 21, 2001