Links to Internet Resources on
Plagiarism in Colleges in USA
Copyright 2000, 2007, 2010 by Ronald B. Standler
The following links are not a bibliography for my
essay, Plagiarism in Colleges in USA,
but are provided as either (1) alternative views or (2) resources for
teaching students to avoid plagiarism.
Table of Contents:
- webpages describing plagiarism,
generally posted by either a librarian, a writing instructor at a college, or a professor
- style in academic writing: especially citations and avoiding plagiarism,
generally prepared by a writing instructor at a college
- rules about academic misconduct,
generally posted by the college administration
- software that detects plagiarism
A. webpages about plagiarism
Margaret Fain and Peggy Bates at Coastal Carolina University
have posted comments on
Cheating 101:
Paper Mills and You.
They conclude: "Term paper mills are a fact of life.
How we as faculty and teachers and librarians deal with them is up to us."
That's exactly why I have posted my essay on ways that law can
help shut down these term paper mills, as part of the legal aspects of plagiarism
in colleges in the USA.
Professor
Harris
of the English Department at Vanguard University of Southern California
has posted a very useful set of suggestions for detecting plagiarism.
Professor
Ehrlich
of the English Department at Rutgers University posted a useful
set of suggestions for detecting plagiarism.
Professor Meyer
at Rutgers at Camden posted an explanation of citations and quotations for use by
students in Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice.
B. style in academic writing:
especially citations & how to avoid plagiarism
Judy Hunter at Grinnell College in Iowa has posted a collection
of material on plagiarization, citation style, etc.
- Summaries of Articles on Citation and Academic Honesty.
- Academic Honesty, a lecture to incoming students in 1997.
Instead of seeing this lecture as an unpleasant task,
she talks about academic values and how to paraphrase properly.
- Citation and Paraphrase,
an exercise from her presentation to all students (either first-year
or transfer students) at Grinnell College.
- Confessions of an Academic Honesty Lady, a May 1997 article.
The URL of Ms. Hunter's materials keeps changing, so I provide a
link
only to the homepage of the Writing Laboratory website.
At that homepage, look for the Writing Forum,
then for her pages on Scholarship and Citation,
or look for her pages on Citation Guides.
The Writing Tutorial Services of
Indiana Univ.
at Bloomington posted a page titled "Plagiarism: What It Is and How to Recognize and Avoid It".
This document shows some examples of acceptable and unacceptable paraphrases.
The Online Writing Laboratory at
Purdue Univ.
has many handouts, including advice about
paraphrasing.
Many of these academic webpages stress teaching the process
of writing a term paper, which is more than the submission
of a final draft at the end of the semester.
For example, students might be required,
half-way through the semester, to submit a rough draft of their paper.
As another example, students might be required to have a one-on-one
conference with the professor about the sources that will be cited
in the paper's bibliography.
These are excellent suggestions, not only for teaching technique,
but also for deterring plagiarism, since most people are honest when
they know they are being watched. Nonetheless, plagiarism is
not excusable, even if the professor does not do these
additional supervisory steps.
My handout on Technical Writing
at my personal website has some comments on style in citations,
as well as other issues in scholarly writing.
C. university sites about academic misconduct or ethics
Johns Hopkins University
Undergraduate Academic Ethics Board Homepage. Has information for professors at
Johns Hopkins who need to report academic misconduct, plus links to
websites at other universities on academic ethics, plagiarism, etc.
Georgetown University
Honor Council has posted a long, detailed discussion of plagiarism for students.
Instead of the strident, legalistic tone of many such discussions,
the Georgetown document is persuasive and enjoyable reading.
University of Pennsylvania,
a private university in Philadelphia, has posted its Code of Academic Integrity,
definitions of kinds of misconduct, and advice to students and faculty.
Swarthmore College,
tips for avoidance, deterrence, and detection, plus links to other websites.
Center for Academic
Integrity, currently at Duke University.
University of Maryland University College's
collection of links
to plagiarism policies at colleges in the USA.
D. software that detects plagiarism
I have not evaluated any of these services, so I can not make any
recommendations. By providing the following links,
I simply note their existence. I receive neither income nor
other consideration as a result of referrals or providing links to any entity.
Note that there are two distinct features of the above services:
(1) compiling their database of source material from the Internet,
term papers from commercial sources, and term papers previously
submitted by students; and
(2) developing software to find text in earlier documents
that is identical to text in the document that is being examined.
Prof. Lou Bloomfield of the Physics Department at the University of Virginia
teaches an elementary physics class in which a term paper is required.
In the five semesters from Spring 1999 through Spring 2001,
he received a number of papers at least partly identical to
one or more other students' papers, leading to investigation of
130 students for honor code violations,
out of a total of approximately 1850 students.
This haul of plagiarists may not
include all of those who plagiarized from books, magazines, or the Internet.
Prof. Bloomfield then started
The Plagiarism Resource Center,
which distributes free detection software to compare papers.
On 26 November 2002, the University of Virginia
expelled 45 students and revoked three graduates' degrees
for plagiarism.
Measure of Software Similarity (MOSS)
is a service developed by Prof. Alex Aiken, formerly at the
University of California at Berkeley, and now at Stanford University,
to find plagiarism in students' computer programming assignments.
Copyright 2000, 2007, 2010 by Ronald B. Standler
this document is at http://www.rbs2.com/plaglink.htm
links updated 30 Oct 2010
go to my essay on legal aspects of plagiarism in colleges in the USA.
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