Preventing Student Plagiarism: A Guide for Faculty

• Make sure your students understand what constitutes plagiarism in your assignment, subject or course.*

  • Include the definition of plagiarism in your syllabus, clarify your expectations and student responsibilities.
  • Identify what may constitute ‘common knowledge’ and not need referencing.*
  • Give examples of the type of citations and sources you expect students to use.*
  • If your assignments involve teamwork, your syllabus should include definitions of acceptable forms of collaboration and responsibilities of project members for plagiarism and collusion.
  • Use library resources and online tutorials referenced in this Guide to explain concepts related to plagiarism (paraphrasing, direct quotes, citing sources, etc.) and check the students' understanding of those concepts.
• Discuss the ethical side of plagiarism with your students.
• Share your stories of dealing with student plagiarism.
• Understand why students plagiarize so you can address the issues.
  Common reasons of student plagiarism
  • They may have a different cultural background.
  • They may not know/understand why proper attribution of sources is important.
  • They may not know how to document sources appropriately.
  • They are stressed and pressed for time.
  • They don't keep track of their sources while doing research.
  • They are not happy with their writing abilities.
• Make it clear to the students that you know their writing style.

• Design your course and assignments to promote learning and minimize students' opportunities to plagiarize.*

  • Change your assignments for each time the course is taught.*
    Include current information and personal reflection where possible as this is not so easily downloaded from the Internet and invites student engagement.

  • Include ‘process’ in the assessment as well as analysis, evaluation and synthesis.*
    Check the steps in the assessment process i.e. check drafts or interim work (which may or may not be not assessed).

  • Avoid assignments limited to information gathering.*
    Include an aspect of recasting/interpreting information to prevent students simply gathering and reporting facts.

  • Individualize tasks and create tasks which may have multiple solutions.
    In some disciplines it may be useful to give students the same task but with differing data sets.

  • Scaffold assignments.

Resources

Subject librarians will be happy to help you design assignments that deter plagiarism

(Items marked with * are taken or modified from Top 10 Tips on Deterring Plagiarism - University of Kent)

• Instruct your students to self-enroll in library workshops and courses in Canvas to take the module "Plagiarism: Why Should It Matter To You."

Plagiarism class ice-breaker/opening

• Have each student write their greatest accomplishment or the thing they’re most proud of on an index card
• Collect the cards then pass them out making sure no student gets their own accomplishment
• Have students claim the accomplishments of the student who’s card they received

Scenarios addressing plagiarism

Present students with a number of scenarios that address the issue of plagiarism or other examples of unethical use of information or intellectual property violations. Ask the students to answer a set of questions, for example:

• What is happening?
• Why is it happening?
• Is this a problem? Why or why not?
• Who, if anyone, gets hurt by this action?
• How would you feel if it were your work?

Examples of scenarios can be found in the following sources:

Exercise: Authorship, rights of authors, and responsible use of others' work

The following questions can be discussed in small groups with a summary to follow):

• What or who is the author? What does it mean to create something?
• Are you an author? Name some of the things you have created.
• Suppose your college/program had an essay contest and you won it. You received a certificate and a handshake form the dean of your college. Then you find out that your roommate sent your essay to a magazine essay context with his or her name instead of yours. Your roommate won $5,00 and a spot on a popular TV show. How do you feel about what happened? What can you do about what your roommate did?
• In the scenario above suppose your roommate took only one paragraph of your essay and still won the money and the TV experience. Would you feel any differently?
• In the same scenario suppose your roommate took your ideas, changed the language just a little, and still won the money. Now how would you feel?
• Why is it important to cite sources when writing or doing other kind of research?

(Modified from Burkhardt, J.M., MacDonald, Mary C. (2010). Teaching information literacy: 50 standard-based exercises for college students. Chicago: ALA).