The Problem: Abundant Cheating

Lathrop, Ann & Kathleen Foss. Student Cheating and Plagiarism in the Internet Era: A wakeup call. Englewood, Colo. : Libraries Unlimited, 2000.

"Statistical data from regional and national surveys summarized here indicate a steady increase in cheating behaviors. Student attitudes in a number of interviews show a general acceptance of cheating as 'no big deal' and document an almost universal reluctance to 'rat' on classmates who cheat."

"In a 1998 survey by the publisher of Who's Who Among American High School Students polled a representative sample of the academically top 5% of all American high school students: 80% of the students cheated 95% of those who cheated avoided being caught

40% cheated on tests
13% plagiarized part of an essay
56% cheated to get good grades"

"The 1998 survey by the Josephson Institute of Ethics polled more than 20,000 middle and high school students nationwide: 70% of the high school students cheated on an exam within the past year. 54% of the middle school students cheated on a test within the past year. 36% of the high school students would be willing to cheat on a test if it would help them get into college."

AND

Plagiarism.org: Background, http://www.plagiarism.org/problem2.shtml

"A 1991 Rutgers University study of 16,000 students, from 31 prestigious U.S. universities, found that 66% of students cheated at least once and that 12% were regular cheaters. A 1997 Psychological Record study found that 36% of undergraduates have plagiarized written material."

 

Possible countermeasures

Heyward Ehrlich, "Plagiarism and Anti-Plagiarism," Department of English, Rutgers University, http://newark.rutgers.edu/~ehrlich/plagiarism598.html

  1. "Don't merely assign an isolated term paper at the start of the semester and then collect it at the end. Increasingly students do not know how to do the planning, research, and revision required in such papers. Under such circumstances plagiarism may be a strategy of desperation more than of opportunism."
     
  2. "Provide a continuing context for student work, including shorter papers, research proposals, and oral reports. Insist that students use a series of several formal worksheets for research proposals. Spend some time explaining research opportunities in the field, including a supervised visit to the college library. Explain the opportunities and limitations of research on the Internet. Be frank and open about the existence of purchased papers."
     
  3. "In small classes, make the research process (including the existence of plagiarism) as public as possible. Ask students to share research proposals with the entire class in oral reports. These occasions can be a major learning opportunity as workable and unworkable proposals are discussed, as well as interesting and trite ones. Ask students which proposals they feel are most original and which seem indistinguishable from plagiarized ones.

    Do not accept papers that short-circuit the research proposal procedure. They are much more likely to be plagiarized. Proposals that mysteriously arise from no where and reach an unexpected conclusion are to be suspected."
     
  4. "In larger classes, insist on a research trail which becomes part of the submitted paper. Insist on a research plan which makes use of the college library. You may wish to insist on all the original handwritten notes, marked photocopies or printouts, and copies of all computer disk files. Make your suggestions regarding the research plan and the student's use of them a formal part of the project."
     
  5. "If you receive a paper you suspect to be plagiarized, move cautiously. Examine the sources cited carefully: do they cluster oddly, or seem unlikely to have been found in the college library? Are errors in bibliographical technique actually efforts to misrepresent the research done. Does the style of the opening and closing paragraphs differ from the others? Be careful what you write on the paper: writing only "Please see me" makes its point emphatically. Ask the student in a conference to explain the main point or points or terminology of the paper. Discuss with the student possible avenues of additional research from any unused material."

"Don't assume infallibility: yes, plagiarized papers can always slip through, and the suspicion of plagiarism can always be raised where it doesn't apply."


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