Plagiarism Detection and Prevention

My first reaction to this is: let’s not talk about it! It’s a tough issue for many, and is quite irritating for me. There are reports that plagiarism is on the rise in conjunction with the widespread Internet use. Too many actions nowadays are considered plagiarism, which is an extremely negative and shameful word. They distinguish intentional and unintentional plagiarism. The unintentional is the one that bothers me. Too many people could fall victim to being named plagiarists though unintentional. I bet this could cause irreparable damage and take away lives (imagine being called a thief). I would never, ever consider “stealing” someone else’s ideas, but I could repeat them, with proper credit if the names are available to me. What if they are not? Can I still mention the ideas? Who is the judge to what is considered “common knowledge”? There are these rules, quite vague, that few know: all these possible ways that are considered “improper”. After more than a year in a graduate program, I’m still often in doubt, and I’m not alone.

Ideas are in the air. Does it happen to you that you get a brilliant idea only to find out later it has been already out there? Some ideas are different, but similar. Imagine someone coming to you claiming that you stole his/her idea and modified it. Another important issue is mentioned in this week’s video resource, the conversation between Drs. Pratt and Palloff about plagiarism in distance learning (Walden University, 2010): apparently, copying your own work is considered plagiarism. I disagree – it shouldn’t be. Why is it allowed to facilitators to copy the same response to each group’s discussion forum? Why some authors can recycle their own work? As an example from my previous class on Program Evaluation, one of our textbook authors, Dr. Worthen, used his own earlier article (Worthen, 2001) for writing the last chapter of the textbook (Fitzpatrick, Sanders, & Worthen, 2011). I had fun comparing texts, but it never occurred to me to doubt his academic honesty! If a student was lucky to get the same assignment, s/he should be able to use this lucky break and resubmit his/her work if s/he is willing to. Graduate students are as busy people as their professors and should be able to use their own work as they please.

So what else is plagiarism? According to Chao, Wilhelm, and Neureuther (2009), “copying published information verbatim or with inadequate paraphrasing, failing to acknowledge sources used, excessive quoting, or wrong or inadequate documentation” (p.33). Excessive quoting?! It took me a while to get used to this one. The way it was mentioned to us, students, almost in passing manner, is not enough. Chao et al. list some reasons for increasing instances of plagiarism, such as “the lack of consistency among citation style guides”, and the lack of serious attitude due to, how they quote, “underlying cultural nod toward getting ahead while getting away with unethical behavior” (p. 32). Additionally, surveys reveal that a staggering number of students don’t understand that using ideas of others without proper credit is a form of plagiarism (Chao et al. 2009).

I disagree with Dr. Palloff (Walden University, 2010) that it’s student’s responsibility to learn the rules. They have to be taught systematically about plagiarism, and not just in graduate school, but starting from high school, maybe even earlier. The attitude of respect for intellectual property and creative thinking must be developed from the early age, and it should be the educators’ responsibility. Part of it should be learning effective paraphrasing (and correct citing) through graded exercises (Chao et al. 2009).

Plagiarism detection software, such as Turnitin (seems to be the most popular one), although not perfect, can help faculty in plagiarism detection. Being a computer program, it cannot distinguish true plagiarism from, say, using common idioms and phrases and, therefore, every case must be checked by humans to confirm the fact of transgression. Faculty members don’t favor the program, though. According to Brown, Jordan, Rubin, and Arome (2010), less than 10% of all professors are using the service. Among reasons, the authors list difficulties adjusting and learning how to use it, threat to teacher-student trust, and the belief that this service “is a poor example of the use of another’s intellectual property rights for profit” (as cited in Brown, et al., 2010, p. 114). It is also clear that, with about 10 million student texts in the database, Turnitin is far from being comprehensive because a lot of primary sources, such as scientific journals, are not in its database. Still, despite not being a very elegant solution, many report that Turnitin is effective enough in reduction of plagiarism, at least as a deterrent or as an educational tool (Brown et all., 2010).

I can also see how some professors would be reluctant to use the tool because they believe in their own abilities to recognize plagiarism, either as a departure from one’s individual style or based on their own comprehensive knowledge of all literature on their subject. Others believe in their ability to design course activities in such a way that makes it impossible to pass someone else’s work for one’s own, such as always using original topics and never repeating the same assignment or being actively involved as mentors in the process of writing each student paper. These are very valuable ideas that I would be happy to use as a facilitator and an instructional designer, along with systematic directions and emphasis on the right ways of using someone else’s intellectual properties.

References:

Brown, V., Jordan, R., Rubin, N., & Arome, G. (2010). Strengths and weaknesses of plagiarism detection software. Journal of Literacy and Technology, 11(1/2), 110–131. Retrieved from the Education Research Complete database

Chao, C., Wilhelm, W., & Neureuther, B. (2009). A study of electronic detection and pedagogical approaches for reducing plagiarism. Delta Pi Epsilon Journal, 51(1), 31–42. Retrieved from Education Research Complete database.

Fitzpatrick, J., Sanders, J., & Worthen, B. (2010). Program evaluation: Alternative approaches and practical guidelines (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson

Walden University. (Producer). (2010). Plagiargism and Cheating. [Online]. Retrieved from Walden University eCollege

Worthen, B. (2001). Whither evaluation? That all depends. American Journal of Evaluation, 22(3), 409–416. Retrieved from the Education Research Complete database