Definition of Plagiarism |
The Proliferation of Plagiarism |
Plagiarism Policies
Preventing Plagiarism | Obtaining Proof | Sources for this Guide
Preventing Plagiarism | Obtaining Proof | Sources for this Guide
Prevention
Be proactive-- prevent plagiarism while teaching worthwhile research skills. This may require the combined efforts of teaching faculty, writing center and library.
- Include a statment about plagiarism in your syllabus.
- Define it.
- Spend some time discussing it.
- State the consequences for plagiarizing in your class, e.g. failing the paper, failing the course.
- Show students the RVCC Student Academic Code of Conduct and its penalties.
- Have students sign a statment signifying that they understand the seriousness of plagiarism in an academic community.
- Emphasize that citing a source strengthens a paper and shows that the student has done the necessary research.
- Indicate what citation style you require, e.g. MLA, APA.
- Obtain an "in-class" writing sample from each student. Keep it.
- Show your students a list of term paper mills
- This shows your awareness of such sites AND your ability to check them for plagiarized papers.
- Analyze one of the papers from the site-- show why such a paper would not receive a good grade by your standards.
- Give very specific research assignments that make plagiarism difficult
- Require that all research be related specifically to a reading in your textbook or to a quote that you provide or to a theme of your class.
- Require that items in the bibliograpy be very current.
- Require that the paper include some specific types of information, e.g. statistics presented in a chart or a graph or the results of an interview.
- Require that the bibliography be annotated -- describing how each source was helpful to the completion of the paper. OR require that the student write a summary of the major sources of information.
- Require that students keep a research log describing the process by which they located their information sources-- What dead ends did they run into? What sources were most useful for their purposes? What databases produced the most relevant articles? What terms or combinations of terms produced the best results?
- Require an in-class writing on the day that the paper is due, describing the research process, problems encountered, surprises.
- Require that the student hand in photcopies of all pages cited in the paper.
- Assign innovative research projects of a type that is not readily available for purchase and does not lend itself to "cut and paste" temptations-- see Designing Innovative Research Assignments
- Spend some time teaching correct paraphrasing or send students to the Writing Center for such instruction.
- Require that the completion of the research paper be a process-- with multiple firm deadlines-- to prevent procrastination
- Set deadline for thesis statement
- Set deadline for bibliography
- Set deadline for outline
- Set deadline for rough draft
- Lock in the topic by a date fairly early in the semester and do not allow last minute substitutions
- Set the due date for the finished paper before the last day of class so that any problems in suspicious papers may be discussed and resolved before the end of the semester.