PLAGIARISM:  TIPS FOR CATCHING IT AND FOR HELPING STUDENTS AVOID IT!

 Recognizing Plagiarism: 

• A piece of writing contains information or indicates a sophistication in the subject area beyond what the student would/could know.

• The language and complexity of the sentences are beyond what you have normally received from this student.  If in doubt, ask the student to explain what he/she means by a particularly complex sentence or passage!  If the entire piece is written on a level beyond what you believe the student’s ability to be, it may all have been copied from the Internet or another source.  You can perform a Google search with a passage in quotation marks to check for this.

• A clear shift in the level of complexity of ideas and language in different parts of an essay.

Helping Students  Avoid Plagiarism: 

• Define plagiarism and explain its potential consequences  (See definition and examples on library page under “Academic Help.”)

• Ask for copies of all sources used in a piece of writing.   (You only have to check them IF you suspect plagiarism.) In their papers, have students highlight any passages taken from their sources.

• Caution students about cutting and pasting from the Internet.  Suggest that when they do this, they use a different color font so that they will remember those words are not their own.

• When students do Internet research, make sure that they get all the necessary information for writing a citation for that source, and for finding it again!

• When students are using materials from sources, encourage them to indicate at the beginning of the material that it is not their own, not just in the parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence or passage.  In other words, have them say, “According to X. . .”  This way, they will also be made aware of the fact that it matters whether the source they are quoting is really an authority on their topic.