How Not to Plagiarize
26Jan08
Lifehack.org has a great article on how not to plagiarize.
Some highlights:
- Don’t paste formatted text into your papers.
- Don’t use writing that is much better than your own.
- Don’t copy entries from Wikipedia.
- Don’t hand in a bunch of really well-written stuff that has nothing to do with the course or the assignment
It might be worth-while to discuss with your students why plagiarism is an awful idea, and then to actually discuss some of the common ways people plagiarize, and why it’s so easy to catch. While it may sound counter-intuitive to show students how to plagiarize, it will show students that you know the all their tricks (which they probably already knew already). This strategy of talking about the methods of cheating might prevent cheating in the first place.
I agree with you precisely, which is why I wrote the piece in the first place. In the end, the answer to “how not to plagiarize” is “don’t plagiarize” — but I’ve found that the ethical and educational arguments against plagiarizeing don’t carry much weight with a lot of students. Knowing that there’s not just a chance but an incredibly *good* chance they’ll be caught, though… I always tell my students about my student who was offered an all-expenses athletic scholarship at a prestigious school — all he needed to do was pass my class. Then I gave him back his no-credit essay; no scholarship for you! In this case, he sacrificed not just his GPA but his educational future and possibly a career in the major leagues.
Thanks for the comment! I’ve found that many of my fellow teachers are afraid to talk about cheating other than to say “don’t do it”. If they were to take your advice, and lay the facts out on the table that we know what they’ll try, and we will most likely catch them. I believe plagiarism is a crime of opportunity, and if we show them it’s really just an opportunity to hurt themselves after they get caught.