Conceptual Issues In Plagiarism

1
Conceptual Issues In Plagiarism

• Kevin Silber
• University of Derby
• Keynote Address for the Preventing Plagiarism in
  Psychology Workshop
• February 2009

2
Overview

• What do we mean by plagiarism?
• Textual plagiarism
• Autoplagiarism
• The shape of the plagiarism problem
• Is it on the rise?
• Is it easier to do?
• Is there more pressure on students to do it?
• Who does it?
• Non-malicious sources of plagiarism
• A level success
• International students
• Ways to tackle the problem
• Proving it
• The stick or the carrot?
• Turnitin

3
What do we mean by plagiarism?

• definitional precision constitutes one of the
  most salient problems in any discussion of
  acceptable versus unacceptable documentation(Haw
  ley, 1984, p. 35)
• Imagine the following text appears in a
  book/journal
• It would appear, therefore, that the capacity of
  human memory is wholly dependent on the price of
  potatoes
• Which of the following is plagiarised?
• It would seem, therefore, that the size of human
  memory is wholly dependent on the cost of
  potatoes
• Some have argued that human memory size is
  determined by the price of potatoes
• So we can see that the cost of potatoes is the
  determining factor when it comes to the capacity
  of human memory
• Is it possible to be accused of plagiarising the
  following?
• It is estimated that there are about 100 billion
  neurons in the human brain
• Top quote stolen word for word from Larkham and
  Manns (2002, p. 340)

4
What do we mean by plagiarism?

• We could suggest that we have a roughly common
  view about acceptable and unacceptable practice
• It isnt about single sentences but how much of
  the total piece is copied
• An actual figure, you say. Oh no, I wouldnt put
  an actual figure on it. You simply get a feel for
  what is and what is not acceptable.
• Maybe it is a combination of intent and extent

5
What do we mean by plagiarism?

• Is there a distinction between minor and serious
  plagiarism?
• Minor
• Small amounts of cut and paste (Davies, 2000)
• One or two verbatim sentences without references
  (Standler, 2000)
• Inventing fictitious references (Bjorklund and
  Wenestam, 1999)
• Serious
• Significant amount written by someone else
  (Standler, 2000)
• Where both intent and extent are high (McInnis
  and Devlin, 2002)
• Perhaps it is no wonder that many of our students
  remain somewhat confused.

6
What do we mean by plagiarism?

• Autoplagiarism
• Do we do this all the time?
• Conference paper, becomes proceedings, becomes
  full paper, becomes lecture material, and so on
• One lecturer wrote on a blog on the subject
• my embarrassment in having to rewrite something
  is that I will be unable to surpass my previous
  effort!(http//dorigo.wordpress.com/2007/09/03/is
  -auto-plagiarism-acceptable/ - accessed 28/01/09)
• Do students not know what autoplagiarism is or do
  they see us doing it and think it is acceptable?

7
The shape of the plagiarism problem

• Is it on the rise?
• Depends on whether the source is staff or student
  self reports
• Incidence reports generally vary from 3 (Karlin
  et al., 1988) to as high as 82 (Stern and
  Havlicek, 1986)
• In a more recent study by Marslen (2003), nearly
  80 of undergraduates at two Australian
  universities confessed to having plagiarised at
  some time.
• Hammond (2002) suggests that the incidence levels
  of routine cheating have been steadily rising
  since the 1940s (20-25) and by the 1990s were at
  60-65.

8
The shape of the plagiarism problem

• Is it easier to do?
• Copy and paste culture
• e-books and e-journals make it easier to
  plagiarise from authentic sources
• Infinite internet resources
• There is always wikipedia
• Cant do it? Just buy it.
• There are an abundance of essay writing service
  websites
• Most claim to help with a model answer and remind
  students that they must only use this service as
  help and not as the essay itself.
• Is there more pressure on students to do it?
• Others plagiarise and are successful (McCabe,
  Trevino and Butterfield, 2001)
• Students work whilst studying so have less time
  to engage with the demands of the course
• Bunching of assignments due to modularisation

9
The shape of the plagiarism problem
10
The shape of the plagiarism problem

• Who does it?
• A review of the literature suggests
• More common among males
• More common in younger students
• Mixed accounts of whether it is more common among
  lower ability students
• More common in students with an active student
  social life
• Those lacking confidence or with a Type A
  personality

11
Non-malicious sources of plagiarism

• A level success
• A level texts have everything you need (content,
  summaries of research articles, evaluation and
  discussion)
• The best way to get an A grade at A level is to
  rote learn and regurgitate a text book
• International students
• Difficulties with writing academically in a
  second language
• Suggestion that some other cultures reinforce a
  greater degree of quoting but no evidence that
  they promote plagiarism

12
Ways to tackle the problem

• Proving it
• Easy where there is obvious documentary evidence
• Less easy where the style is better than that
  expected by the student but no original text can
  be found (essays R us)
• Turnitin
• Will detect anything within its huge database
• Can be set up to detect autoplagiarism
• Gives a percentage of non-original work and
  highlights all plagiarised text with reference to
  the original source

13
Ways to tackle the problem

• The stick and the carrot
• Stick
• A sensible policy must be known to students
• Offences must be dealt with quickly and
  efficiently
• Carrot
• Turnitin can be used as a learning tool
• We need to provide incentives for students not to
  plagiarise

14
Summary

• We know it exists but it is hard to define
• It is probably on the rise as even the students
  who abhor it feel pressured to indulge
• It is easier to do but there is also help in
  detection
• Lots goes undetected and/or unpunished
• We are hopeful that all is not lost
• Now over to you for the solutions

15
References

• Bjorklund, M. and Wenestam, C. (1999), Academic
  cheating frequncy, methods and causes,
  Proceedings of the 1999 European Conference on
  Educational Research, Lahti, Finland (accessed
  from www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00001364.htm
  on 30/01/09).
• Davies, P. (2000), Computerised peer assessment,
  Education and Training International, 37(4), pp.
  346-55.
• Hammond, M. (2002), Cyber-plagiarism are FE
  students getting away with words? (accessed from
  www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00002055.htm on
  01/02/09).
• Hawley, C.S. (1984), The thieves of academe
  plagiarism in the university system, Improving
  College University Teaching, 32, pp. 35-39.
• Karlin, M., Michaels, C., Podlogar, S. (1988), An
  empirical investigation of actual cheating in a
  large sample of undergraduates, Research in
  Higher Education, 29(4), pp. 359-64.
• Larkham, P.J. and Manns, S. (2002), Plagiarism
  and its treatment in higher education, Journal of
  Further and Higher Education, 26(4), pp. 339-49.
• McCabe, D.L., Trevino, J.K. and Butterfield, K.D.
  (2001), Cheating in academic institutions a
  decade of research, Ethics and Behaviour, 11(3),
  pp. 219-32.
• McInnis, J.R. and Devlin, M. (2002), Assessing
  learning in Australian universities (accessed
  from http//www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearn
  ing/03/plagMain.html on 01/02/09).
• Standler, R. (2000), Plagiarism in colleges in
  the USA (accessed from www.rbs2.com/plag.htm,
  28/01/09).
• Stern, E.B. and Havlicek, L. (1986), Academic
  misconduct results of faculty and undergraduate
  surveys, Journal of Allied Health, 15(2), pp.
  129-42.