You have a memory that would convict any author of
plagiarism in any court of literature in the world.
Said by
Hawkesworth of Samuel Johnson
Your manuscript is both good and original,
but the part that is good is not original,
and the part that is original is not good
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Academic integrity speaks to the heart of the educational process.
Plagiarism undermines learning and the purposes of our academic
institutions. At stake is the honor of your school, faculty and students.
Prospective students place a high value on their perception of the
integrity and reputation of the institution of their choice.
From Glatt's An Open
Letter to Academic Faculty and Staff
Brock Library has a number of appropriate links, especially to Access© (for which all students pay 55c per full credit). (NOTE: CanCopy has changed its name to Access©, or Access Copyright.) However there is one important site that needs mention: the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, which is responsible for the administration and processing of the greater part of Intellectual Property in Canada (see especially their FAQ).
The classic site on copyright (for the US) is The 10 Big Myths about Copyright, with particular reference to the Internet.
Intellectual Property in the Information Age: A Classroom Guide to Copyright provides valuable insight to what should be done when using material from the Internet (e.g. Copyright and the WWW, and see also Web Issues). Obviously, programs like Napster have brought copyright to national attention.
Further useful Canadian links are:
Canadian Copyright Board
Copyright: Key Questions and Answers for Teachers
Copyright: What every teacher should know
Another interesting concept is Copyleft, which attempts to allow free distribution of "copyrighted" material, but which inhibits anyone from making a profit from those materials.
See Brock's Policy on Integrity In Research and Scholarship, with the student's rights mentioned under Section 5.2:
A student who has worked closely with a supervisor, or as part of a research group, should understand that the rights to publish, patent, or commercially exploit the results of the research may need to be shared with the supervisor and/or other members of the research group, and with the University. In those cases in which the work has been supported in part by research grants or contracts, there may be other conditions affecting any patent or commercial exploitation. All such circumstances and conditions should be reviewed in the understandings and agreements prepared in advance of the work (see Section 5.3).
PLEASE NOTE that pre-publishing on the Web may inhibit you from publishing the same work in a juried/refereed print publication
There are many sites on the Internet that deal with plagiarism, its definition, its detection, its avoidance and its prevention. Here is a small sampling:
Does plagiarism matter? Yes!
It is dishonest, is intellectual theft, it devalues Brock's degrees, and it is illegal under copyright laws! See also Intellectual Property.
Does plagiarism matter? Maybe!
Perhaps the methods used in the evaluation of a student's work should be altered, and advantage taken of group work, or 'constructivism'. For instance, many departments reduce the weight given to assignments, laying more emphasis on the tests and examination. In some departments, a minimum of 40% (say) in the final examination is also required. In Plagiarism: Does it matter?, it is argued that perhaps the photocopied sources should be supplied along with the student's annotations, which shows that the student can choose relevant information, and understand it.
Class size is clearly a factor or a problem. When there are just a few essays, one person (Prof or TA) can handle everything, including possible personal interviews.
The following are some alerts that could make a marker suspicious.
- Marker's knowledge.
- Especially the knowledge of what other current students have produced ("seen it before somewhere"). But larger classes have several markers and "duplicates" can be missed.
- Sentence Structure
- Sentences or even paragraphs that look or feel awkwardly placed
- Temporal Alerts
- It appears that events from 4 (say) years ago were used (i.e. an avoidance of current events) which might indicate that a "frat house copy" is being used
- Flow Problems
- Thoughts that seem to be quite in-depth are abruptly cut off. This is often indicative of the use of the "plagiarize and paste" keys!
- Terminology
- Terminology used in the essay that has not yet been taught in class (but obviously a student could have "read ahead")
- Student Capability
- Essay appears to be beyond the capabilities of the student, as shown by previous essays. This also applies to the grammar and spelling found in the essay
- Style Changes
- Certain paragraphs seem to have style differences that result in flow/fluency difficulties while reading
- Layout.
- As silly as it may seem, similarity of layout is probably one of the strongest "red alerts". This is especially so in assignments in the computing area
- Time
- More cases of plagiarism surface towards the end of term when deadlines are piling up
But how can you test to see if there has been plagiarism?
- The Glatt Plagiarism Program uses a technique that has been known about for years--take an essay, and replace every 7 (or 6 or 5) words by a fixed-length place-holder. Then ask the essay's author to "fill in the blanks". If the replacement words match (or are synonymous with) most of the original, then that person probably wrote the essay in his/her own words; otherwise... Glatt uses proprietary information to enhance the accuracy of the decision
- Talk to the student about the paper
- Ask students to sit in a controlled environment and to reconstruct the essay using the concepts that they can remember
- "As the essay is so good, would they present it to the class this afternoon?"
- Get the essay in machine-readable form (on a diskette) and calculate the Flesch index. For instance, some word processors display statistics based on the average number of words per sentence and the average number of syllables per 100 words. (Note: Standard writing averages 17 words per sentence and 147 syllables per 100 words--see Alki Software.) This cannot prove plagiarism, but can certainly aid in the investigation. Comparisons can be made automatically between the student's previous essays, and/or between different students' essays. There are many other measures that can be invoked, such as Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Coleman-Liau Grade Level and Bormuth Grade Level
- Archive the best essays in the department from previous years. But this then requires the markers to be aware of their content
- Logs can be used to track what students do on computers, especially the use of e-mail
- Search the Internet for unusual phrases and vocabulary
- Integriguard will compare a given esssay to archived essays, checking for similarities. But note that it charges the instructor $4.95 per month! This would be a large department's total budget if all instructors registered
- An Ontario company has produced EVE (Essay Verification Engine), which compares essays to others on the Internet as well as 'frat house copies', and it only costs US$25 per instructor
- A currently free essay checker is available at PlagiServe
- Turnitin.com encourages instructors to require their students to 'self-submit' their essays for an exhaustive plagiarism test. These essays are tested against a large database of essays and also compared against web sites, with the goal of eliminating plagiarism by deterrence
Brock currently has a site licence, and all instructors can have essays submitted for all courses--see Turnitin.com at Brock University
Brock's Policy on Academic Misconduct.
Because of variations in what is expected of a student across disciplines, Departments at Brock may articulate their own extensions to Brock's Policy, such as Computer Science, Chemistry, and this explanation from a course in English (scroll towards the end).
If plagiarism is suspected by the marker, the marker should complete an incident report, outlining the various reasons for the suspicion (Incident Report Template, Computer Science Department). This should then be checked by the Head TA, who would also then complete a report.
Both reports (and the pieces of work) should be handed to the instructor, and if the instructor strongly suspects that there is plagiarism, then the full dossier is handed to the Chair
The Chair then decides if there is a case:
If the Dean concurs, a formal letter setting out the details of the charges, the punishment and the appeal possibilities, is sent to the parties, with a copy to the Registrar. Otherwise a letter from the Dean stops the process.
Acts on the various letters. If this is a repeat case of plagiarism, then further action may be taken. If only one case occurs, the sealed letter in the student's file is destroyed on graduation. For second offenders the transgression is noted on the transcript, but is removed on graduation.
Academic Responsibility at Bucknell
Computer Science takes the "warn and educate" approach to discourage plagiarism. For instance we require that students return a signed cover page with their assignments. This cover page also assists with the logistics of handling the assignments. (By the way, we also have locked paper recycling bins, so that semi-completed projects can be recycled safely, or properly!)
Ensure that students know that you know about the "standard" sites for model essays, such as the following, but note that IRC channels, email, and chat rooms are also used to contact people with a view to exchanging work:
In true Internet tradition, there are many sites that also show you how to avoid plagiarism, such as Avoiding Plagiarism from Hamilton College in New York. (BTW, their Writing Center is a further source of good information for essay writing!)
Again, an excellent source is the Open Directory project. And Robert Harris has an interesting site, which covers issues of interest to students and faculty, as well as plagiarism!
Some information on Plagiarism and a guide to avoid it
Plagiarism Avoided:Taking Responsibility For Your Work
The Writing Center at the University of Northern Iowa has some excellent links on how to effectively use sources, without plagiarising (see number 5).
Glatt also has available a program that students can run their work through and which supposedly analyses it for potential plagiarism problems--see Glatt Plagiarism Program.
A source of many similar links to these is kept at Ohio University
First and foremost, understand your subject!
When developing your work, ensure that you keep an accurate record (the full citation, as required by your Professor) of all the sources used. While browsing on the Internet, ensure that the URL and date are printed on every page you print. A good overview of these ideas is provided in Using Sources, again from Hamilton College.
Brock Library's page on Essay Writing Help
Brock's Library has pointers to the various citation styles for electronic resources (which includes the Columbia University Press guide to citations for online work, detailing both a Humanities and a Scientific style).
The MLA-style of citation is clarified by Janice Walker for electronic sources.
Make sure that it is clear when group work, or collaboration, is allowed. One should also be aware of the varied backgrounds and cultures of our students, where very often there are different expectations.
Never buy or sell an essay or piece of work!
Never lend a disk or essay to anyone!
Recycle paper not ideas