What is plagiarism? Why do we plagiarize? How do we plagiarize? How do we detect plagiarism? How do we avoid plagiarism?

1. Plagiarism

2. The Ethical Questions
• Why are you attending college?
• What do you want to learn?
• What do we learn from writing papers, essays?
• How is cheating or plagiarism tied to your tests, your
papers?
• What ethical issues are involved in cheating?
• Who does plagiarism hurt? Who does cheating harm?
• What if you are not “caught?”
• How would you feel if someone copied your research and
did not give credit to you, passing the ideas off as their
own? Would you trust that person after?
• Are you trustworthy?
• Does it matter?

3. Plagiarism in the
professional world

4. Presentation Agenda
• Why do we cite our sources?
• What is plagiarism?
• Why do students plagiarize?
• How do I avoid plagiarism?
• Sources of online plagiarism?
• How do faculty & librarians detect
plagiarized papers?

5. Why do we cite?
• Give credit where credit is due
• This is how research happens—we build on
other research
• Prove that you’ve done your work—protect
yourself
• For the reader’s further interest and
investigation
• So your teacher or professor can check your
sources.

6. What is Plagiarism?
“According to the Merriam-Webster Online
Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means
• to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
• to use (another's production) without crediting the source
• to commit literary theft
• to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an
existing source.
• In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both
stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.
But can words and ideas really be stolen?”
http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html

7. “According to U.S. law, the
answer is yes.
The expression of original ideas is considered
intellectual property, and is protected by
copyright laws, just like original inventions.
Almost all forms of expression fall under
copyright protection as long as they are
recorded in some way (such as a book or a
computer file).”
http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html

8. “All of the following are considered
plagiarism:
• turning in someone else's work as your own
• copying words or ideas from someone else without
giving credit
• failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
• giving incorrect information about the source of a
quotation
• changing words but copying the sentence structure of
a source without giving credit
• copying so many words or ideas from a source that it
makes up the majority of your work, whether you give
credit or not”
http://www.plagiarism.org/plag_article_what_is_plagiarism.html

9. Plagiarism is
• Academic dishonesty
• Unethical behavior
• Unfair
Whether intentional or unintentional

10. Situations when plagiarism
occurs most often

11. 1. Direct Quotes
• If you use someone
else’s exact writing
without putting it in
quotes, you have
blatantly plagiarized.
• Even if you add the
source in your
bibliography, it is
still plagiarism.

12. 2. Paraphrasing
• Be careful about rewriting someone
else’s words. If your sentences use many
of the same words and grammatical
structure as the original source, it could
be plagiarism.
Just put the text in your own words…

13. Paraphrasing needs practice!
• Read selection
• Read selection again, slowly
• Cover/close/hide selection
• Talk aloud about the selection to someone else—try to
explain what you read
• Write down your words without looking at source
• Check what you have written against the original
• If you cannot do this—re-read!
– Try to get input from someone to see if you
understood the selection
– If you still cannot do this—choose a different
source or selection

14. 3. Original Idea
• Give credit (“attribute”) to unique ideas others
have thought up—their analysis or conclusion
or interpretation of an event. You need:
– Quotations if direct quote
– In text citation or footnote and
– Works Cited or References
• If you present the ideas of another without
crediting them, you have plagiarized them.
• Obvious ideas, like known facts, don’t have to
be credited.
• When in doubt, attribute.

15. Why do students cheat?

16. 1. “A Means to an End”
For some,
learning is not a
priority. Getting a
diploma and a
good job after
graduation is.

17. 2. “This does not relate to my
major...”
Some students
resent having to take
courses not directly
tied to their major.
They see “general
education
requirements” as a
waste of their time,
so not worth the
effort of study.

18. 3. “I have to be top of the class!”
Many students feel incredible pressure to
maintain a high grade point average. This can
come from friends and family. Students also
feel high grades are necessary for getting a
good job or getting into the college or
graduate school of their choice. Plagiarized
papers are seen as a way of keeping the GPA
high.

19. 4. “This is a stupid assignment”
Students often recognize when an
assignment is “busy work” and feel that
“if the teacher doesn’t respect me, I
won’t respect the assignment.”

20. 5. “I am too busy to write!”
• Heavy class load
• Jobs
• Family obligations
• Sports
• Social activities
• Extra-curricular
events
• Resume building
experiences

21. 6. “Everyone does it, so I have
to!”
Other students are cheating. This may
give them an unfair advantage over
students who do not cheat. Plagiarism is
a way “to level the playing field.”

22. 7. Our “Culture?”
• Students do not report each other
• Some teachers “don’t care” or ignore it
• Some teachers “feel sorry” for the
student and do not enforce school policy
• Too much of a “hassle” for some teachers
to deal with—angry parents &
administration
• Easy to cheat and copy

23. 8. “Huh?”
Some students do
not know they are
plagiarizing.
“But I included the website!”

24. Studies Show that the Amount of
Plagiarism in Colleges relates to:
• Size of school
matters—smaller,
less cheating
• Private vs. Public
matters—private less
cheating
McCabe, D.M. (2001). Cheating in • Sex does not matter
academic institutions: a decade of
research. Ethics & Behavior, 11(3),
• Honor code, Code of
219-232. Ethics in place in
school.

25. Tips for Avoiding Plagiarism

26. 1. “Danger, Will Robinson,
• Danger!”
Avoid paper mills—
free or purchased
papers.
• Surfing the Web to
look for “easy’
information.
• Turning in other
student papers as
your own.
These are easy ways to
get caught!

27. What does the student get when
the download a paper?
• Dated material
• Poor writing
• Bad or nonexistent
research
Usually, but not always

28. “Good” papers can come
from a variety of sources.
• Old fraternity paper files that have been
digitized.
• Students using previous papers.
• Students uploading the papers of others.
• For fee websites—they sell term papers.
These can all be caught using a plagiarism service,
and many colleges and high schools do

29. 2. “Quotes”
Always put quotes
from text in
quotations. Never
forget to do this.
Forgetting or
neglecting this is the
easiest way to get
accused of
plagiarism.

30. 3. Good Paraphrasing…
• Be sure you are not just rearranging or
replacing words.
• Rewrite the phrase in your own words and
credit the original source.
• Double check what you wrote by comparing it
with the original writing.
In essence—know the material!

31. How do teachers & readers
detect plagiarism?
They look for…

32. 1. Writing Style?
• The writing style, language,
vocabulary, tone, and grammar is
different than what is expected from
the student.
• Different writing styles, tones,
language, etc. in different parts of
paper tell the reader that different
authors were used.

33. 2. Web Address?
Readers check to see
if there is a web
address at the top or
the bottom of a page.
This probably
means the paper was
printed with a web
browser directly
from a web site.
(Pretty dumb!)

34. 3. Copyright notice?
Check to see if any
copyright notices are
anywhere in the text of
the paper. Also check to
see if any notices similar
to “this free paper
brought to you by
schoolsucks.com”
appear anywhere in the Some students do not
paper. read through all the
text before turning it in
as their own!

35. 4. Layout?
Is the page strangely or poorly laid out?
This could mean that the text was
imported into a word processor. The
imported text was originally formatted
differently and the conversion changed
how the page looks. If a student does not
take the time to fix it, the page will look
odd when printed.

36. 5. Graph or Chart Reference?
Does the paper make reference to charts
or graphs that can not be found? Maybe
the originally paper had these items but
subsequent recycling and reusing and
downloading has resulted in the loss of
these items.
“The chart above is based on data from the Bureau of Public
Debt up to September 8, 2008, the last reporting day before
this chart was created. “

37. 6. Inactive Web Sites?
The bibliography of the paper lists web
sites that are no longer active.

38. 7. Dated material & studies?
Many of the citations in the bibliography
are at least a few years old or not current
enough for the subject. Citations may
have been new when the paper was
originally written.
Very obvious with APA Style
documentation!

39. 8. “The past” is now?
Does the paper make reference to past
events as if they where happening today?
(“I believe that the impeachment
hearings on President Clinton are unfair
and are politically biased. The whole
impeachment process should be stopped
now.”)

40. 9. They use Google Search
Type in a key sentence as a phrase search:
Google Search is used by teachers, librarians,
teaching assistants, and professors all the
time to detect plagiarism.

41. 10. They use Professional Search
Programs
These scan papers against online
resources for a fee, searching free sites
and subscription databases. Many high
schools and colleges use turnitin.com.

42. Students submit directly to turnitin.com and report goes to
teacher or teacher asks paper to be submitted if suspicion.

43. ACADEMIC HONESTY For XXXX School Year
XXXXX students are expected to demonstrate the highest standards of
academic honesty. Academic dishonesty includes providing or copying
homework, providing or receiving information during quizzes or tests,
and providing or using unauthorized materials during quizzes or tests.
Academic dishonesty also includes plagiarism, which is using the words
or ideas of another person as one’s own without giving credit.
Consequences assigned by the teacher and administration will include
receiving a zero on the assignment/test, as well as a disciplinary
consequence of a Saturday detention, suspension, probation, or expulsion.
(P. XXX)
XXX Handbook 20XX-20XX.

46. Kathy Fester
kfester@gmail.com
http://researchwithkathyfester
Adapted from presentation by
Michael Lorenzen
Plagiarism: Huh? by Kathy Fester is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
.
Last updated 7/1/12