Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/29842
Plagiarism confronted Teaching the consequences of copying Story by Sherry Posnick-Goodwin • Photos by Scott Buschman from 2006 to 2010 by Donald L. McCabe, co-founder of the Center for Academic Integrity and a professor at Rutgers Univer- sity, reveal that 40 percent of 14,000 under- graduates admitted to copying a few sentences in written assignments, and that the number of students who believe copying from the Web constitutes “serious cheating” has declined during the past decade. Schessler makes it clear to students from the beginning that plagiarism won’t be tolerated. “Any time you use someone else’s words, Before assigning term papers for literature composition class at Gavilan College in Gilroy, Steve Schessler takes time to discuss something that has tormented teachers from the beginning of time — or at least the begin- ning of homework assignments. The subject he broaches is plagiarism, and a show of hands reveals that his students are not exactly clear on the concept. Schessler, a member of the Gavilan Col- lege Faculty Association, is not surprised. In his past four years as a college professor, he has been alarmed by the increase in stu- dents who copy and paste information from Web sources into their papers without proper attribution — sometimes without even bothering to remove hyperlinks, which show up in blue. Plagiarism is defined in the Collins En- glish Dictionary as “the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the repre- sentation of them as one’s own original work,” and it is on the rise. The New York Times reports a “disconnect growing in the Internet age” as concepts such as intellec- tual property, copyright and originality get clouded. Music file-sharing, Wikipedia and Web-linking have given students the notion that they are freely entitled to anything in cyberspace, writes Times reporter Trip Ga- briel in an article, “Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in the Digital Age.” Surveys you need to let me know whose ideas they are and where they come from,” he says. “You need to give credit to the original source, and there’s a reason why we cite ev- erything.” Students soon learn the reason: Schessler uses an online service, turnitin.com, that scans for plagiarism by comparing student papers against all published materials and previously submitted papers in the website’s database. Schessler shows students on an overhead projector how Turnitin raises “red flags” by highlighting phrases that appear to be plagiarized. He then demonstrates how to cite sources based on the MLA Style Manual published by the Modern Language Associa- tion of America, commonly used in schools. He tells students that if they deliberately pla- giarize, they will fail his class. Carlene Barros, a world history teacher at above: Gavilan College student Lucia Leal takes in a lesson about plagiarism. left: High school world history teacher Carlene Barros has seen a rise in students copying other people’s work. 24 California Educator | APRIL 2011 Crawford CHAMPs (Community Health and Medical Practices) High School in San Diego, also has seen an increase in plagia- rism. Sometimes students plagiarize from the Internet; sometimes they plagiarize from each other; and sometimes they submit re- search papers without documenting their sources. When it happens, she tries to make it a teachable moment. “You discuss it,” says Barros, a San Diego Education Association member and a