Plagiarism
And more from: http://www.cbu.edu/library/faculty/plagiarism/
How common is plagiarism?
In 2001, Donald L. McCabe of Rutgers University performed a study of 4,500 high school students that found that, “74 percent of students admitted to cheating seriously on an exam one or more times; 15 percent admitted to turning in a paper largely taken from a Web site or a paper mill; and approximately 51 percent admitted to not citing the source from a Web site when using a few of its sentences in their papers” (Straw).Another study performed in 2002 asked 698 undergraduate students how often they plagiarized. In this study, only 24.5 percent admitted to having cut and pasted text from the Internet without proper citation. Interestingly, more than 90 percent of the undergraduates reported that their peers were probably doing the same (Kellog).
An article on the National Science Teacher Association web site reports that, “In another poll, 80 percent of top high school students admitted to cheating during their academic careers, the highest percentage since the “Who’s Who Among American High School Students” survey began 29 years ago. In the survey, 95 percent of cheaters said they had never been caught” (Toppo).
This is so unbelievably common. As I grade papers that are blatantly plagiarized I think to myself, “do they think we’re stupid or that we just won’t bother to check?” Other statistics indicate that profs just don’t want to take the time to check whether a paper is plagiarized. Well, if you don’t care then why bother assigning it? Figuring out what is plagiarized and what is not is a tedious job, but the WWW makes it easier.
Another thing that amazes me is how bad students are at plagiarism. Some will print directly from their browser, or leave hyperlinks showing- as if we won’t notice!
We teachers are partially to blame. We assume they know what we mean when we say cite your source, don’t copy. We assume they know that paraphrasing is changing more than one word. We assume too much. As much as they may moan and groan about it, we have to teach them what plagiarism is, and how to avoid it. Sometimes it really is unintentional. However, others are just liars that are trying to pull a fast one. These students are the ones that I do not feel bad for when I print their paper from the net, highlight the plagiarize portions and label with an identifying 0/F. Have an issue with it? Read your syllabus buddy and count your blessings that you aren’t being kicked out of the class or school.
November 13 2007 11:22 pm | Education
November 14th, 2007 at 12:27 am
[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptPlagiarism Nov 13th, 2007 by kontan Research and statistics And more from: http://www.cbu.edu/library/faculty/plagiarism/ How common is plagiarism? In 2001, Donald L. McCabe of Rutgers University performed a study of 4,500 high school students that found that, “74 percent of students admitted to cheating seriously on an exam one or more times; 15 percent admitted to turning in a paper largely taken from a Web site or a paper mill; and approximately 51 percent admitted to not citing the s [...]
November 14th, 2007 at 12:50 am
[...] Virginia University Plagiarism » This Summary is from an article posted at KontansPlace on Tuesday, November 13, 2007 [...]