Plagiarism

Some students don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘Plagiarize’ so it is important to have them understand what it is and realize that it’s wrong. If students get into a habit of plagiarizing, then it is difficult to stop the practice as adults. Don’t think that plagiarism only happens among the uneducated though, in Australia there is the celebrated case of an author who won a major prize for her novel only to have it exposed as a largely plagiarized work, then a short time later she was exposed again in a newspaper short story which she’d also plagiarized from the internet.

Begin by having each student look up the meaning of ‘plagiarize’ and to write this down. Include this understanding in a letter to their teacher, why it is wrong to plagiarize, and its consequences. Make sure you establish this rule and consequences you and the school will exact on perpetrators. Spend a considerable amount of time in the week (class work & homework) doing this task as this will impress upon students the importance of avoiding plagiarism. Students should restate any rule, such as a “failing grade’ that you have made if they are caught passing someone else’s work off as their own.

Finally, with the advent of the Internet it is quite easy to check to see if students’ work is plagiarized. Enter the first sentence or a thematic sentence of the work into a search program such as Google or Yahoo and these will find instances of these word combinations online. There are also purpose-designed sites available to educators which make it very easy to find plagiarism. Some are provided below.

• http://www.download.com/Plagiarism-Finder/3000-2051_4-10294099.html
• http://www.m4-software.com/
• http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Business/Educational_Tools/Plagiarism_Finder.html

Students may think that plagiarism is a minor complication akin to cheating of a paper at school but a simple research regimen can show them just how widespread the consequences are, in adult life, especially if it involves someone in the public arena. The process of having students research the word and its meaning and then incorporate this into a letter to their teachers which they are graded for will impress upon them for a lifetime the importance of this topic.