80% of college students admit to cheating at least once (The Center of Academic Integrity)
90% of students believe that students that cheat are never caught or have not been appropriately disciplined (US News and World Report)
98% of high school students have let someone else copy their work (Free Press)

Why Students Plagiarize?

• They plagiarize because they are uninterested in the material.
• They are not motivated to spend the time it takes to do accurate research.
• They are unaware of what constitutes actual plagiarism.
• They don’t have time between a social life, work, and their other class work.
• They feel pressures to get excellent grades.
• We live in the instant gratification age.
• Their teacher needs to inform and help prevent them from performing plagiarism.

What are the most common forms of student plagiarism?

• Turning in someone else’s work.
• Taking the thoughts, ideas and written work of others and not giving them credit.
• On-line sources for research papers

Teacher Tools

Use a search engine such as google.com to perform a phrase search “enclose suspected phrase in quotations."

Strategies for Deterring Plagiarism

1. Discuss plagiarism with your students
2. Let students know you are aware of paper mills
3. Show students how to correctly cite their sources
4. Discuss the penalties for plagiarism
5. Pick unique or creative topics for student research
6. Require specific components of research (i.e. varied sources)
7. Have students submit drafts of their papers.
8. Have student submit two copies of their paper. (a teacher copy on file)
9. Have them use a specific source from class.

Strategies for Detecting

1. Check the format of the paper (MLA format? Internal Cites? Works Cited?)
2. Check citations (Are they current? Could the student find the source listed?)
3. Check for writing style (Is it consistent with the student’s previous written work?)
4. Check content (Does the paper match the assignment? Is it pieced together?)
5. Have your students write summaries of their papers for class discussion.

Five Rules to follow if you are certain you caught a student plagiarizing.

1. Take the situation seriously.
2. Gather your evidence (confirm you have enough to substantiate your claim).
3. Determine who has to know.
4. Meet formally with the student.
5. Evaluate your role. (What is your role in preventing student plagiarism?)

Student Reference Sites

See related links below:

The information on this web page was researched and written by Bob Hempel and Denise Paul during a Secondary Academy workshop on Plagiarism and Copyright Issues held March 29, 2003.

1. Plagiarism Tutorial
   Plagiarism: How to Recognize it and How to Avoid It from the University of Connecticut' Library

2. MLA Citation Style
   Cornell University's MLA Citation Style

3. Google
   Use this search engine to perform a phrase search. Enter the phrase in quotation marks to search over four billion web pages.