The Cyber-plagiarism Predicament: A New Facet to an Old Problem

Background and Current Trends

• Academic Practices, School Culture and Cheating Behavior by Gary J. Niels 
  Excellent summary article with hotlinked references to other research, surveys..
• Center for Academic Integrity Research Summaries Statistical snapshots of students attitudes toward academic dishonesty. From recent surveys and research conducted by Donald McCabe. students.
• Cheating 101: Paper Mills and You
  Overview of the problem of cheating on college campuses which includes a lengthy list of Internet paper sites (from Coastal Carolina University).
• Free Paper Sites listed in Google directory.
  Free sites for papers retrieved by Google directory and ranked in Google search engine preference order.
• Fee based Paper sites listed in Google directory.
  Similar list to the free list. Presented in Google rank order.
• Internet Paper Mills
  7 pages of links to free and fee paper sites.  Prepared by a University as a deterent.
• Survey of Colorado Springs Doherty High School teachers and Students, Fall 2002
  Summary and detailed results of survey of Doherty High School teachers and students conducted in the fall of
  2002 (most survey questions relate to cheating and plagiarism).

Detecting Plagiarism

• Detecting Plagiarism
  Characteristics of plagiarized papers.
• Cut-and-Paste Plagiarism: Preventing, Detecting and Tracking Online Plagiarism
  Lisa Hinchliffe of the Illinois State University provides some clues to detecting plagiarized papers.
• Plagiarism.org
  Or TurnItIn.com.  Compares submitted papers to papers from online term paper sites.
• Glatt Plagiarism Program
• Students submit their papers. The software program extracts random words from their paper. Students are required to fill in the missing words.
• PlagiServe
• A free service that uses search engines to identify papers found on web sites. Similar to TurnItIn.com. Based in Ukraine.
• Edutie.com
  The commercial version of PlagiServe.
• EVE2
  Essay Verification Engine. Software installed on your local computer. Upload papers into the software. Searches keywords and phrases on the web.
• WordCHECK KeyWORD Software
  Designed to safeguard your intellectual property. Keep a file of your own documents and check others against them for possible cases of literary theft.
• The Webs plagiarism police.
  Andy Dehnart writes in Salon News Magazine . Focuses on problems that can occur when relying on detection software.

Preventing Plagiarism

• Avoiding Plagiarism
  UC - Davis  Student Judicial Affairs site.
• Dealing with Plagiarism Issues
  A page prepared for the Support for Texas Academic Renewal (STAR) Center by the RMC Research Corporation.
• Writing-Plagiarism Advice for Lessons
  A page provided by the Apple Learning Interchange about reducing plagiarism in Grades 1-12.
• Internet Plagiarism: Strategies to Deter Academic Misconduct
  Helpful page written by Mary Hricko, the library director at the Geauga Campus of Kent State University.
• Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers
  An English faculty member offers advice for creating assignments that deter plagiarism.
• Plagiarism and the Web
  Some useful suggestions for combating plagiarism provided by Bruce Leland at Western Illinois University.
• How to Avoid Plagiarism
  Univ. of Toronto guide
• Avoiding Plagiarism - Purdue
• Practice Exercises in Paraphrasing-Purdue
  From Purdue's Writing Center
• What is Plagiarism at Indiana University?
  An short interactive concept lesson by Ted Frick. Provides online scoring.
• The Least You Should Know About Plagiarism and Maintain Your GPA
  A useful guide prepared by Dr. Steven Hale at Georgia Perimeter College.
• How to Recognize Acceptable and Unacceptable Paraphrase
  Examples from Indiana University Writing Center.
• Reflections on the Internet Paper Mills
  An analysis of online term paper sites written in 1998 by William K. McHenry at Georgetown University.
• ACI Net Guide to Term Papers
  A potentially useful "consumer alert" to share with students considering using online term paper mills (prepared by a consultant who charges to write custom term papers!).
• Term Paper Alternatives
  From the UC Berkeley Library web site.
• Term Paper Alternatives
  A handout prepared by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe at Illinois State University.
• Alternatives to Term Papers
  A web site from Columbia Gorge Community College with many suggestions for "alternate" assignments.

Honor Codes and Research on Academic Integrity

• Center for Academic Integrity
  Hosted by Duke University most authoritative body for issues of academic integrity including plagiarism
• Academic integrity in honor code and non-honor code environments: A qualitative  investigation. By McCabe, Donald L ,Journal of Higher Education, vol 70, n.2, p.211, Mar 1999.
• Maryland Student Honor Page
  Link to the honor code used as a model for many "modified" honor code systems.
• University of Virginia Honor Committee Website
  Information provided by the University of Virginia.
• Colorado College Honor System
  "The Honor System encompasses the student body, the Honor Council, and the Honor Code to form an essential part of the academic program at The Colorado College."

Sites of General Interest

• Student Plagiarism in an Online World
  Overview of the cyber-plagiarism problem published in the ASEE's Prism Online.
• Resources for Teaching: Plagiarism
  General resources and links related to plagiarism prepared for faculty by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University at Albany.
• Put an End to Plagiarism in Your Classroom
  Article from Education World. Good summary of instruction strategies to help prevent plagiarism.
• Plagiarism in Colleges in USA
  Lengthy article by Ronal B. Standler detailing many of the legal aspects of the plagiarism problem on college campuses.
• Electronic Plagiarism Seminar
  Useful site prepared by Gretchen Pearson, Public Services Librarian at Le Moyne College.
• Web Plagiarism Presentation
  Powerpoint presentation by Bob Boyczuk of Seneca College - presented at the 2000 College Association for Language and Literacy Conference (scroll down conference page and click on session 5A).
• Tips on Detecting and Preventing Internet Plagiarism
  Summary of a seminar presented at the 2001 NWSA conference posted on the WMST-L listserv.
• Style manual Sites
  An  collection of the major style manuals. MLA, APA, Chicago/Turabian, CBE and examples of Web style guides.

Bibliography - Online Plagiarism

• Sources for this Presentation.

Powerpoint presentation

• Presentation

Assignments - Good and Bad

Last Updated: January 2003
Robin Satterwhite and Leroy Smith