Plagiarism Resources and Services
A Guide for Faculty

Also see our guide for students, "How to avoid plagiarism."

NMC's Catalog and Student Handbook defines plagiarism as:"offering as one's own work, the words, ideas or arguments of another person, without appropriate attribution by quotation, reference or footnote. Plagiarism occurs both when the words of another are reproduced without acknowledgement, and when the ideas or arguments are paraphrased in such a way as to lead the reader to believe that they originated with the writer."

NMC's Writing Center provides this definition:Plagiarism is using others' words or ideas without giving credit to the source. Plagiarism occurs when students use papers others have written, when students use the writing of professionals without documenting the source, or when students allow others to revise their own words and thinking so extensively that the work no longer represents the students' own thinking. Plagiarism is considered the most serious of academic offenses, and students who plagiarize knowingly or unknowingly are subject to severe penalty.

HOW PREVALANT IS PLAGIARISM? HOW OFTEN DO STUDENTS CHEAT?

1988 Who's Who Among American High School Students Survey

• 70% of students admitted to cheating on an exam

1998 Who's Who Among American High School Students Survey

• 80% of students admitted to cheating on an exam
• 95% of those who cheated said they have never been caught

Studies by Baird, and by Stern and Havlicek, have shown that an average of 70% to 85% of American college students cheat.

1993 Study by Donald McCabe, Associate Provost, Rutgers University and board member of the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University

• 87% of college students admitted to cheating on written work

1999 Survey of 2,100 American students conducted by the Center for Academic Integrity at Duke University

• 68% admitted to committing at least one academic offense such as plagiarizing

A survey of 698 undergraduate students (at nine universities; 8 in United States and 1 in the Middle East) by two Rochester Institute of Technology professors, soon to be published in the May/June 2002 issue of the Journal of College Student Development

• 16.5% of students said they "sometimes" did not properly cite text they cut and pasted from the Internet
• 8% said they "often" or "very frequently" did the same
• 50.4% of student said their peers either "often" or "very frequently" cut and pasted Internet text without giving a proper citation

A New Twist On An Old Problem

Cyber-Plagiarism: copying or downloading in part, or in their entirety, articles or research papers found on the Internet or copying ideas found on the Web and not giving proper attribution.

(this definition was found on a University of Alberta Libraries web page -
http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/plagiarism/terminology/index.cfm)

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Sources consulted & to learn more:

A faculty guide to cyber-plagiarism. University of Alberta Libraries. Last modified November 1, 2001
(http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/plagiarism/)

e-cheating: Combating a 21st Century Challenge. Kim McMurtry. T.H.E journal online. November 2001
(http://www.thejournal.com/articles/15675/)

Plagiarism on the web is as easy as 1-2-3. Malcolm Maclachlan, TechWeb News, September 9, 1999
(http://content.techweb.com/wire/story/backtoschool/TWB19990909S0003)

Students plagiarize less than many think, a new study finds. Alex P. Kellogg. The Chronicle of Higher Education [online]. February 2, 2002
(http://chronicle.com/free/2002/02/2002020101t.htm)

Question: What are term paper mills?

Answer: Internet sites offering term papers for a fee, and sometimes for free. Visitors to these sites can search by paper topic and find papers written for a wide range of grade levels, from high school to graduate school. Papers are of varying quality and generally cost $3 to $50 per page. In addition to ready-made papers, sites like www.bignerds.com offer custom writing services. Students can email their paper topics and, in some cases, receive same day service. Most sites contain disclaimers that all papers sold are the original work and property of the site (some are even copyrighted) and urge students not to pass them off as their own work. Most sites state that they intend for papers to be used as sources of inspiration, but with names like School Sucks and Evil House of Cheat one has to wonder.

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Sources consulted & to learn more:

Cybercheating: Detecting Plagiarism. University of Puget Sound, Collins Memorial Library Web Page
(http://library.ups.edu/instruct/ricig/cyberch2.htm#so)

Cut-and-Paste Plagiarism: Preventing, Detecting and Tracking Online Plagiarism
By Lisa Hinchliffe
(http://www.uregina.ca/tdc/CutPastePlagiarism.htm)

Plagiarism Stoppers: A Teacher's Guide by Jane Sharka
(http://www.ncusd203.org/central/html/where/plagiarism_stoppers.html)

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Source consulted & to learn more:

The plagiarism handbook : strategies for preventing, detecting, and dealing with plagiarism / Robert A. Harris
PN167 .H37 2001 - Osterlin book

If you suspect plagiarism, one of the first things you may want to do is talk to the student about the paper. Ask questions about the paper's content, the theories or arguments set forth, and the sources consulted. If you are convinced the paper is not the student's own work, you may want to use a plagiarism detection service.

Unfortunately, most of the web sites that check term papers are pay sites. At the time of this writing, a couple of the most popular free services - www.howoriginal.com, and www.findsame.com - are unavailable.

You may want to try searching some of the term paper mills for papers. Robert A. Harris' The plagiarism handbook lists several sites in Appendix E.

You may also type in a short section of the paper and run a search in www.google.com - or type a few keywords from the paper into a search tool like http://www.essayfinder.com or http://www.essaycrawler.com. See Appendix D of Robert A. Harris' book for a list of Internet search tools. There is also a directory of Cliffs Notes-type resources at www.freebooknotes.com that may be a source of easy "cut and paste" for students. Browse through appropriate resources.