Resources for Instructors
UWP
Instructor's Guide
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is a serious academic offense, one we deal with on a regular basis at the UWP. Often described as "borrowing" or "copying" other people's work, it is actually a failure of writing that undermines the very mission of the University. As instructors, we need to teach our stuidents how to avoid plagiarizing, and we also need to be cognizant of the fact that, despite our best efforts, some students will submit written work containing plagiarism.
Miriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines plagiarism thus:
- 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.
Clearly, plagiarism is an act of fraud. By stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward the writer uses deception to complete the tasks assigned by their writing instructor. The internet now makes it very easy to find thousands of relevant sources in seconds, and plagiarists can find, copy, and paste together an entire term paper or essay. Because much of the online material is written by other students, it is often difficult or impossible for instructors to identify plagiarism based on expectations of student-level work.
As a new instructor in the UWP you need to be aware of three aspects
of this problem: recognizing the various forms of plagiarism; UWP
Syllabus Policy Statement for your syllabus; UWP Policy and Procedures
for dealing with the problem of plagiarism.
Intentional versus Unintentional Plagiarism
Just like hacking into websites, or getting free cable, or jumping off a bridge just because the other guy did it, plagiarizing papers can be something of a thrill in itself. For many students it becomes a question of ingenuity: "can I sneak a plagiarized paper past my professor?" But there is usually more behind intentional plagiarism than just the thrill of deception. Common reasons for intentional and unintentional plagiarism include a failure to understand the research process, the need to make the grade, peer pressue, citation confusion, and a misunderstanding of paraphrasing and summarizing. The following comments from the WPA Guide on Plagiarism may be helpful in delineating Intentional versus Unintentional Plagiarism
What are the Causes of Plagiarism and the Failure to Use and Document Sources Appropriately?
Students who are fully aware that their actions constitute plagiarism—for example, copying published information into a paper without source attribution for the purpose of claiming the information as their own, or turning in material written by another student—are guilty of academic misconduct. Although no excuse will lessen the breach of ethical conduct that such behavior represents, understanding why students plagiarize can help teachers to consider how to reduce the opportunities for plagiarism in their classrooms.
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Students may fear failure or fear taking risks in their own work.
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Students may have poor time-management skills or they may plan poorly for the time and effort required for research-based writing, and believe they have no choice but to plagiarize.
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Students may view the course, the assignment, the conventions of academic documentation, or the consequences of cheating as unimportant.
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Teachers may present students with assignments so generic or unparticularized that students may believe they are justified in looking for canned responses.
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Instructors and institutions may fail to report cheating when it does occur, or may not enforce appropriate penalties.
Students are not guilty of plagiarism when they try in good faith to acknowledge others work but fail to do so accurately or fully. These failures are largely the result of failures in prior teaching and learning: students lack the knowledge of and ability to use the conventions of authorial attribution. The following conditions and practices may result in texts that falsely appear to represent plagiarism as we have defined it:
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Students may not know how to integrate the ideas of others and document the sources of those ideas appropriately in their texts.
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Students will make mistakes as they learn how to integrate others words or ideas into their own work because error is a natural part of learning.
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Students may not know how to take careful and fully documented notes during their research.
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Academicians and scholars may define plagiarism differently or more stringently than have instructors or administrators in students earlier education or in other writing situations.
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College instructors may assume that students have already learned appropriate academic conventions of research and documentation.
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College instructors may not support students as they attempt to learn how to research and document sources; instead, instructors may assign writing that requires research and expect its appropriate documentation, yet fail to appreciate the difficulty of novice academic writers to execute these tasks successfully.
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Students from other cultures may not be familiar with the conventions governing attribution and plagiarism in American colleges and universities.
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In some settings, using other people's words or ideas as their own is an acceptable practice for writers of certain kinds of texts (for example, organizational documents), making the concepts of plagiarism and documentation less clear cut than academics often acknowledge and thereby confusing students who have not learned that the conventions of source attribution vary in different contexts.
Required Policy Statement
Every UWP syllabus must include the following statement:
Plagiarism is a serious
violation of the Student Honor Code.
The Honor Code prohibits and defines plagiarism as follows:
Plagiarism. A student shall not represent as the student’s own work all or any portion of the work of another. Plagiarism includes (but is not limited to):
a. Quoting oral or written materials, whether published or unpublished, without proper attribution.
b. Submitting a document or assignment which in whole or in part is identical or substantially identical to a document or assignment not authored by the student. (University of Florida, Student Honor Code, 15 Aug. 2007 <http://www.dso.ufl.edu/judicial/honorcode.php>)
University of Florida students are responsible for reading,
understanding, and abiding by the entire Student Honor Code.
Important Tip: You should never copy and paste something from the
Internet without providing the exact location from which it came.
Recommended Policy Explanation
It is generally recommended that you explain the consequences of plagiarism to your students. You may offer this explanation in class or include it in your syllabus. Below is an example from one of our instructor's syllabi:
If a student
plagiarizes all or any part of any assignment, I will award him or her
a failing grade on the assignment. Additionally, University policy
suggests that, as a MINIMUM, instructors should impose a course grade
penalty and report any incident of academic dishonesty to the Office of
the Dean of Students. You should know that your work might be tested
for its “originality” against a wide variety of databases by
anti-plagiarism guardian sites to which the University subscribes, and
negative reports from such sites constitute PROOF of plagiarism. Other
forms of academic dishonesty will also result in a failing grade on the
assignment as a minimum penalty. Examples include cheating on a quiz or
citing phony sources or quotations to include in your assignments.
The University of Florida considers any form of “academic dishonesty” a serious violation of University standards. You should know that violations might result in your expulsion from the University. See the UF Academic Honesty Guidelines, and make sure you understand all the University standards.
UWP Policy and Procedures on Plagiarism
UWP Procedure for dealing with plagiarism follows the steps listed below:
- Conference with your student, asking for an explanation of what you perceive as an act of plagiarism. Be sure to take notes during and after your conference with the student. Decide if you will allow them to revise.
- Discuss the case with your course supervisor. Discuss what steps have been taken, or should be taken, in the particular case.
- Know that you can give a zero for the assignment, or a zero for the whole course in egregious cases.
- After consulting with your course supervisor, file the paperwork with the Office of Student Affairs if necessary.
Here are some helpful links that may be of assistance to you when dealing with plagiarism:
