tesol 2007

Below is the handout for the TESOL 2007 discussion, minus the URL on the top line.

#3120 Defining, detecting and dealing with online plagiarism
CALL-IS Discussion, TESOL 2007, Seattle WA USA
Wed., Mar. 21st, 2007, 7:00-7:45pm, CC211
Thomas Leverett, So. Illinois Univ.-Carbondale
Carbondale IL USA leverett@siu.edu

Increasing use of online environments has changed the nature of the battle against plagiarism in several ways:

1. For most students, writing a paper at night, at home, on their pc, plagiarism is a highlight and a click away, and they are quite used to these activities. Many come from social networks & web environments that are similar to ours but perhaps with more copying, less ethical qualms about doing so. “Students are merely leveraging the same tools that elsewhere are being lauded as the foundations of citzen journalism, collaborative writing and Web 2.0…The online world favors cooperation and collaboration…this is a real community” (Wagstaff, 2007)

2. As the world gets smaller, rigid sanctions against plagiarism appear to be more extreme, and the pressure from continuous contact with other cultures pulls us into understanding if not allowing other value systems. Teachers’ values, and those of the academic establishment, are not changing significantly, however; if anything, the conflict over how seriously plagiarism is taken appears to be widening, becoming more frequent, and expanding to other fronts.

3. Plagiarism has become easier to find and track down, when electronic search engines can find any string of words anywhere on the open free web; free and cheap software is available to help teachers find it.

4. On the other hand, since entire term papers can be delivered electronically nationwide or worldwide, without necessarily being stored on the web, it is easier for a paper mill to do a flourishing business, and easier to spread papers geographically so that no teacher sees the same one twice. A presentation at SIUC found 72 Free term paper sites; 195 term paper mills, and 80 more devoted to specific topics (Nelms 2006).

Defining plagiarism:

This has not changed significantly, but is still a complex issue. Nelms classifies plagiarism into three kinds: intentional, unintentional and “patchwriting” (also known as “cut-and-paste”; the latter is a kind of unintentional, he says. For international students, it is very common simply to not know the rules, or to assume, for example, that mentioning the author makes using quotes optional. It is also increasingly common to come from situations where exchange of phrases and sentences is virtually habit, as expected as, for example, sharing an eraser.

Detecting plagiarism

One approach is: when you see it, you’ve already lost. This tends to put the pressure on you, the teacher, to set the scene with appropriate remarks, and assignment patterns, that will make plagiarizing the more difficult option for the student (see below). Here are some guidelines, however, once you've noticed it:
1. If it doesn’t sound like the student talking, it probably isn’t
2. If the student is getting “help,” where & when was he/she told not to?
Was it clear from the start that he/she was to do it alone?
3. Ask questions: can you talk about what you wrote? Are you sure you understood the rules? Do you understand the consequences?

Dealing with plagiarism:

The following suggestions are adapted from Leverett (2006).
1. Don’t let it pass; don’t let students go on without knowing exactly what it is.
2. Present it early, carefully, thoroughly, non-judgmentally
3. Use Turnitin (or some similar service) & tell everyone about it; better yet, teach students to use it themselves before handing the paper in.
4. Assume it’s unintentional whenever possible; give students an out
5. Put yourself on the students’ side- against a hostile and unforgiving world
6. Raise the stakes- make students publish everything, and let them know: “the foul taste of copied material lingers long after the sweet taste of a passing grade is gone”
7. Organize all assignments so that they are harder to plagiarize:
a. Base them on things that just happened, or happen only in class
b. don’t use assignments that can be completed from the web
c. require specific components on the paper and change those regularly
d. require process steps, ensuring teacher involvement at each step
e. make students talk about their papers regularly
f. require metalearning essay
g. require up-to-date sources
h. change subject every term

Bibliography:

Branagan, C. (2001, June). Rutgers study: Web makes student cheating easier. Eschool News. http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/showstory.cfm?ArticleID=2638. Accessed 3-07.

Nelms, G. (2006). Review of “Plagiarism as Education Opportunity” Workshop, presentation at SIUC, December.

Leverett, T. (2006). Internet Plagiarism. CALL-IS Discussion, TESOL 2006, Tampa FL.
http://www.siu.edu/~cesl/teachers/pd/ip.html.

McCabe, D. and G. Pavela. New honor codes for a new generation. Inside Higher Ed.
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2005/03/14/pavela1. Accessed 3-07.

Standler, R. (2000). Plagiarism in Colleges in USA. http://www.rbs2.com/plag.htm. Accessed 3-07.

Wagstaff, J. (2007, Mar. 8). Plagiarising students, or wiki-style collaboration? Loosewire blog. http://www.loosewireblog.com/2007/03/plagiarising_st.html. Accessed 3-07.

Plagiarism Resource site: http://www.plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu/.