Investigating Plagiarism

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Investigating Plagiarism

• Elaine Gass Hirsch
• elaineg_at_lclark.edu

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Acknowledgements

• Many Thanks to Jennifer Dorner

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Outline

• Varieties of Plagiarism
• Deterring Plagiarism
• Detecting Plagiarism
• Examples

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Academic Integrity Policy

• Dishonesty includes
• Failure to acknowledge the ideas or words of
  another individual
• Placing ones name on papers, etc. that are the
  work of another individual
• Submission of the same paper for separate courses
  without authorization
• Fabrication or alteration of data
• -LC Pathfinder

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Varieties of Plagiarism

• Copying from a print source
• Downloading a free research paper
• Buying a paper from a paper mill
• Copying information from a Web site
• Copying an article from a database
• Cut and paste plagiarism

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Varieties of Plagiarism

• Changing some words but copying whole phrases
• Paraphrasing without attribution
• Summarizing without attribution
• Faking a citation

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Deterring Plagiarism

• Talk to students about plagiarism
• Talk about your past experiences detecting
  plagiarism
• Emphasize writing as a process
• Show examples of proper usage of sources and
  examples of plagiarism
• Create assignments that discourage plagiarism

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Deterring Plagiarism

• Change assignments regularly
• Break the assignment into steps
• Require an annotated bibliography
• Require photocopies or printouts of sources
• Do not allow students to change topics at the
  last minute

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Detecting Plagiarism

• Clues
• Lack of citations/Mixed styles
• Older references
• Unusual formatting
• Off topic/Inconsistent style
• Advanced vocabulary/Writing style

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Detecting Plagiarism

• Know major sources of papers
• Search for the paper on the Web
• Search for the paper in full-text library
  databases

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Detecting Plagiarism

• Plagiarism Detection Services
• Turnitin.com
• Essay Verification Engine (EVE2)
• Glatt Plagiarism Services