How Do I Help Students Avoid Plagiarism?

· Do not assume students know what plagiarism is.

· Teach, discuss, argue, and debate plagiarism and intellectual ethics.

· Provide students with guidelines, examples, questions, and quizzes about plagiarism.

· Have students begin writing from their own experience and knowledge.

· Get several examples of a student’s writing before assigning a long paper.

· Have students write short pieces, more often, rather than one long work.

· Scaffold student’s writing with brainstorming, question generation, KWL, journaling, and webbing.

· Provide students with meaningful feedback on their writing and their thinking.

· Require multiple drafts, edits, and revisions, which may include peer and instructor edits.

· Have students write for various, real, authentic audiences – not just the teacher.

· Emphasize the persuasive nature of writing rather than the retelling of facts or events.

· Use rubrics to set clear expectations for writing assignment, format, and style.

· Avoid recycled, unimaginative, “formula” essay questions and assignments.

· Assign topics that are creative, specific, and change every year.

· Assign different types and genres of writing: letters, monologue, scripts, arguments and debates.

· Have students write from another person or character’s point-of-view.

· Model proper citation in your own instructional materials and handouts.

Questions and prompts

· How are the rules and expectations for academic discourse different from everyday discourse? What is the purpose of this discourse? What does attribution add to this discourse?

· What does “intellectual property” mean? What is the difference between copyright and plagiarism?

· Convince me. So what? What’s the evidence? Why should I believe this? What does that mean? Elaborate on that. Break it down for me. Who else said this? What do others say? Where’s your support? Back it up.

These web pages will help you understand and teach about plagiarism

1. PLAGIARISM http://www.northwestern.edu/uacc/plagiar.html This page from Northwestern University has good explanations and excellent examples of correct and incorrect citation.

2. Avoiding Plagiarism http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html This Purdue University site has clear guidelines, strategies for avoiding plagiarism, and a practice exercise.

3. How to Avoid Plagiarism http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/cyberplag/cyberplagexamples.html This Penn State site has short and clear sections on Wholesale copying, Cut and paste, Inappropriate paraphrase, and When to cite.

4. Plagiarism:What it is and how to avoid it http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml This page from Indiana University has some good examples and explanations of plagiarized text.

5. How Not to Plagiarize http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/plagsep.html This page from the University of Toronto has a bit different format – more of a “frequently asked questions” and answers page.

6. TurnItIn.com Research Resources http://www.turnitin.com/research_site/e_home.html Especially useful is the lesson on paraphrasing http://www.turnitin.com/research_site/paraphrasing.html

7. Writing Lab http://web.grinnell.edu/writinglab/CitationGuides/Indivex.html Grinnell College’s web site has great examples of how to cite and paraphrase.

8. Plagiarism Resource Site http://leeds.bates.edu/cbb/ This site is a collaboration between several colleges. It takes an in-depth scholarly look at plagiarism issues. The site includes a bibliography, style guides, interactive tutorials, web logs, and video.

9. Understanding Plagiarism http://education.indiana.edu/~frick/plagiarism/ This site at the University of Indiana-Bloomington has an online plagiarism quiz and test.

10. Plagiarism Quiz http://www.esc.edu/esconline/across_esc/library.nsf/wholeshortlinks2/Plagiarism+Quiz?opendocument This short, six slide Macromedia Flash quiz is from Empire State College, New York