What constitutes plagiarism?

Parents Forum
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<p>Twice over the years here on CC I have heard heartbreaking tales of students who have posted about being expelled for plagiarism. In both cases it appeared to me that the students were not blatantly trying to cheat but that nevertheless their work was deemed to be plagiarism. One student a few years back was instructed to not use references or citations at all and was then kicked out for plagiarism, presumably due to paraphrasing, if I remember correctly. I am starting this thread at the request of a current poster in <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1128800-expelled-hyp-2.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1128800-expelled-hyp-2.html&lt;/a> who asked for discussions of plagiarism to be contained in another thread. Here's the new thread.</p>

<p>Back in the day of the dinosaurs, when I was in school, we were explicitly taught to paraphrase in science research papers and use citations at the end of the paragraph or page. Mixed in would be quotations preceded with a sentence to the effect, "so and so says blah blah blah (paraphrase)" and then the supporting quotation. At the end of the paper we would summarize (paraphrase) without direct quotation, yes indeed using some of the words/tone/style of the authors we had referenced and learned from. I am wondering if similar writing style would get a kid kicked out these days. Scary stuff!</p>

<p>Here's a link I found to a discussion on plagiarism from the teacher pov in 2002:</p>

<p>Another</a> Plagiarist Caught - thanks Google! - Straight Dope Message Board</p>

<p>One person "Pepperlandgirl" post #47in the above linked discussion claims, "Citing is enough when you are directly quoting a source. "Blah blah blah blah" (author pg number). Fantastic.
But when you are paraphrasing and there are several sentences that are your original thoughts, and then you stick a sentence in the middle that is from someone else and you change "cash" to "money", you are missing the point of paraphrasing, and even with a cite at the end of the paragraph, it's still questionable." I would flunk this teacher's class (or get in trouble) because she is overly strict imho. </p>

<p>As a kid I used to rewrite (change the order of the sentence) World Book Encyclopedia entries for my 5th and 6th grade papers on, say, xyz country. It taught me how to write. College kids are, admittedly, not 5th graders but are still learning how to write. I wonder how many kids are accused of plagiarism when they made an honest effort to meet the assignment. Are kids being kicked out for pieces that are not explicit cut and paste from another source without citation? I guess that's the nugget of my question. Could you be kicked out for paraphrasing with citation? Ouch.</p>

<p>Giveherwingsmom speaks very clearly in post 22 of the above reference CC thread, and she quotes a recent article:</p>

<p>Skimming the Surface
April 11, 2011</p>

<p>ATLANTA -- "An analysis of research papers written in first-year composition courses at 15 colleges reveals that many students simply copy chunks of text from the sources they cite without truly grasping the underlying argument, quality or context"...…</p>

<p>(and)</p>

<p>"The researchers analyzed the students' 1,832 research citations and assigned each of them to one of four categories:</p>

<p>Exact copying -- a verbatim cut-and-paste, either with or without quotation marks.
"Patchwriting" -- the copying of the original language with minimal alteration and with synonyms substituting for several original words (patchwriting is often a failed attempt to paraphrase, they said).
Paraphrasing -- a restatement of a source's argument with mostly fresh language, and with some of the original language intact; it reflects comprehension of a small portion, perhaps a sentence, of the source material.
Summary -- the desired form of citation because it demonstrates true understanding of a large portion, if not the entirety, of the original text; summarizing was identified by the researchers when student writers restated in their own terms the source material and compressed by at least 50 percent the main points of at least three consecutive sentences.
Only 9 percent of the citations were categorized as summary. 'That's the stunning part, I think: 91 percent are citations to material that isn't composing,” said Jamieson. “They don't digest the ideas in the material cited and put it in their own words.' "</p>

<p>News: Skimming the Surface - Inside Higher Ed </p>

<p>What do you folks think? I guess this is a big topic in University settings.</p>

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<p>Paraphrasing without citation is plagiarism, although I think it’s a slightly different issue than copying a paper. The thing is, with a research paper, you need to show that your information came from somewhere. You could be making that paraphrased paragraph up, or (probably more of a problem right now) your whole paper could be from wikipedia or some random webpage that isn’t a legitimate source. I think that you need to be able to prove that your information came from somewhere.</p>

<p>My high school covered plagiarism pretty extensively, and we used turnitin.com. That might not catch issues like the paraphrasing, but we talked about what exactly constituted plagiarism and the consequences (don’t remember exactly, but something along the lines of failure).</p>

<p>We also went over it a decent amount in college, but I think being caught with it was automatic failure of the course, but not expulsion. Of course, I majored in journalism (which is probably why I’m so adamant about needing to show where information comes from).</p>

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<p>You understand, don’t you, Hugcheck, that what you did in 5th and 6th grade with World Book Encyclopedia (and what today’s pre-teens do even more easily with Wikipedia) was absolutely, positively, 100%, no-controversy plagiarism? There’s certainly a fuzzy line somewhere that can get very confusing, especially when there are serious consequences attached. But paraphrasing World Book isn’t the fuzzy line. It’s only half a step removed from xeroxing something and claiming it as your own, and that half-step is a half-step of coverup and deception, not adding original thought.</p>

<p>I have seen some examples of situations I thought were really questionable, especially coming out of Princeton, where there seems to be a real fetish about it. One I think I remember involved a student handing in a rough draft (which he was required to hand in) that had extensive quotes (identified properly as such) and blanks for the citations that were partially, not completely filled in. That student was suspended immediately and forced to take the next semester off as well, I believe, although to what moral end I cannot imagine.</p>

<p>To some extent, journalists have it easy, because in many contexts they are not allowed to say anything original, and there are no strictures against using secondary sources. So for them it’s simply a matter of making clear where every single statement comes from (even statements they had to beg sources to repeat to them verbatim so they could claim the sources said them, or leading questions the sources merely nodded to confirm). Problems tend to arise more when people feel pressure to be original.</p>

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<p>Back in the day I used to choose topics for papers based on the courses I was taking. If I could create and use a paper for more than one class I did. I thought this was a great time saver and considered myself lucky/clever to work the paper into two classes.</p>

<p>Today that would be plagerism and I would be expelled. </p>

<p>I had no idea.</p>

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<p>Quotations are pretty easy for most college students to grasp. Paraphrasing is tougher, probably because so many kids copied from the encyclopedia whent hey were in grade school and then just changed a word or two. When I teach this stuff, I use a slide with side by side text, one showing illegal borrowing of words, another showing illegal borrowing of structure, and a third showing an acceptable paraphrase. It’s the illegal borrowing of structure that catches most students. They really had no idea that they couldn’t just change the words. </p>

<p>As for the citation itself (we use MLA; other styles might be different), it is absolutely unacceptable to use one citation at the end of a paragraph to cover the whole thing. It was that way almost 30 years ago when I was in college, too. When the paraphrase is more than a single sentece, it needs to be introduced (X argrues) and then cited at the end (4). It does mean that if a student has several paraphrases within the paragraph from the same source, there will be several in-text citations from that source. </p>

<p>I think lots of freshmen just have bad habits to break. They haven’t been made to cite correctly. It’s also a tedious process and, especially in the case of the procrastinator, they “don’t have time” or can’t find a source any more and just try to wing it. </p>

<p>I’m thinking, though, expulsion would have to be for something pretty flagrant. I mean, there are ways to work with a student who is making mistakes, even big ones. Even failing a particular assignment isn’t nearly as extreme as expulsion.</p>

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<p>This is an excellent topic. Is there a link to a good website that shows the difference between what is plagarism and what isn’t (similar to the slides used by Ordinarylives above to teach the difference). </p>

<p>Also, I’m unclear on Sax reference to plagerism. Using the same paper in two classes isn’t ethical, but I don’t think you can plagarize yourself. Am I missing context in that post?</p>

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<p>I get a lot of calls from my son about what constitutes common knowledge. He’s done so much reading now on nuclear issues he doesn’t know any more what needs to be cited or not.</p>

<p>When I was a student I footnoted EVERYTHING, I used to joke I didn’t have an original idea in my head.</p>

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<p>Plagiarism is the acedemic version of copywrite infringement. Some professors are more invested than others in the concept of “protecting” original thinking and writing. (though it is highly doubtful more than one person has not arrived at the same idea through different means, anyway. You see this all the time in international patent situations, or wrong attributions of inventions.)</p>

<p>The reason I find superstrict plagiarism rules disingenious is because it is quite possible for a very bright student reading a tremendous amount of information over the course of four or five years to take in and assimilate all sorts of ideas without knowing where each and every thing has come from. At some point, the gained knowledge has been bought and paid for and is owned by the student, outright. </p>

<p>Here’s something interesting:</p>

<p>Shakespeare never came up with one original play idea. In fact a couple of years before Hamlet, there was another Hamlet by somebody else on the stage. Obviously, his words and psychological understanding of the characters surpassed those of the other playwrights, however, today, he would have been hauled into court over and over again for “stealing” people’s stories.</p>

<p>It’s one thing to ask students to cite when the idea they come across is something they haven’t heard a few times before, but the fetishistic way professors sometimes hunt it down is the mean-spirited selfishness of the uncreative. </p>

<p>Note: I’m widely published, so probably ought to see it from the opposite way, but I don’t.</p>

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<p>[Examples</a> of Plagiarism - Academic Integrity at Princeton University](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/08/plagiarism/]Examples”>http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/08/plagiarism/)</p>

<p>Here is the link offered in the other thread that gives examples of what would be considered violations. The third example is, as ordinarylives comments, where a lot of kids who are cited for violations probably go wrong, changing all the wording but not the structure of the paragraph and presentation of the idea.</p>

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<p>Here is a page from Princeton’s site showing examples of plagiarism, including paraphrasing issues. </p>

<p>[Examples</a> of Plagiarism - Academic Integrity at Princeton University](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/08/plagiarism/]Examples”>http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/integrity/08/plagiarism/)</p>

<p>I’m going to block quote a selection from this site to show how strict the rules are about paraphrase:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>As you can see, at an academic level, it’s not enough to change words. The argument in the example follows the structure and examples of the argument in the cited text. The “thinking” comes from the original; nothing is added by the writer in the example. It’s just changed around and reworded. This really is considered plagiarism. (if this were a research paper and not a message board comment, I’d be skating thin ice myself.)</p>

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<p>(crossposted with Wildwood).</p>

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<p>JHS yes I understand that the World Book stuff would be plagiarism. My point is that I was 10 and learned how to write by doing that. Thinking this over earlier this AM I realized that people learn by imitatation. So there’s that aspect of learning - we learn by copying others. A second consideration is that back in those days I was writing long hand. I did not snip the paper out of the book and paste it down; I did not snip phrases and switch them around and paste them down; I wrote them out long hand and learned the topic in the process. If the teacher had sat me down and asked me to describe my paper I would have been able to spout back most of what I had written. I learned.</p>

<p>JHS also says, “I have seen some examples of situations I thought were really questionable, especially coming out of Princeton, where there seems to be a real fetish about it. One I think I remember involved a student handing in a rough draft (which he was required to hand in) that had extensive quotes (identified properly as such) and blanks for the citations that were partially, not completely filled in. That student was suspended immediately and forced to take the next semester off as well, I believe, although to what moral end I cannot imagine.”</p>

<p>Yes. This seems cruel to me. It was a draft, for goodness sake. I suppose some teaching styles (like some people) are the out to get you catch you types. Others are out to instruct, to teach.</p>

<p>Eirean also points out you can give and F. If the student fails to grasp what you have (presumable) taught about effective writing then you give them a bad grade. Ordinarylives talks about illegally borrowed structure. Kick a kid out because they illegally borrowed structure? Holy c***.</p>

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<p>Journalists have as much problem with this as students. And not every sentence in an article needs a source, because common knowledge and facts don’t need sources. I teach journalism, and some of my students go overboard in citing sources. They’ll have a sentence like “The soccer team plays its next game on Saturday, April 2, according to the head coach.” But when it comes to professional journalism, many writers don’t source, and many editors don’t edit (not talking about the major metros here, but smaller papers that have cut their editing staffs down to nothing.)</p>

<p>I’ve been plagiarized and I’ve caught plagiarism. One case of plagiarism I caught was paraphrasing that was really obvious – along the lines of the Princeton example. Another case I caught, the student cut and pasted from the Internet – and it was hard to find the original source because there were about 10 different, distinct websites using the same language with no citation to the original.</p>

<p>I think many high schools do a crappy job of teaching this – my daughter learned the minimum amount about citation in high school and never had to write a research paper. The student I caught in the Internet case I described above was in middle school, and the parents were furious and I was instructed to soften my penalty to practically nothing. </p>

<p>I think expulsion is extreme. Failing the course works for me (although in one of my cases, the original decision to give an F was overruled – this was in college). In another case, the student was suspended – but he was accused by several teachers of cheating/plagiarizing. In the journalism world, reporters found guilty of plagiarism are sometimes fired, but often suspended for a few weeks. </p>

<p>I think there needs to be penalties, but they should fit the crime and recognize that we are talking about students and not professionals. Fail the assignment – absolutely. Fail the course – probably. Expulsion, for the first and only offense – seems extreme.</p>

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<p>Poetgirl says, “The reason I find superstrict plagiarism rules disingenious is because it is quite possible for a very bright student reading a tremendous amount of information over the course of four or five years to take in and assimilate all sorts of ideas without knowing where each and every thing has come from. At some point, the gained knowledge has been bought and paid for and is owned by the student, outright.”</p>

<p>I agree.</p>

<p>In music it can be tricky to figure out if a song is original, too. I recall hearing one artist (forget who) who told a tale of coming up with a beautiful tune. He called his agent to ask, “Is it mine?” He had no idea if he had come up with it or was remembering a nice song someone else did.</p>

<p>Beethoven used themes from folksongs. Aaron Copeland’s Appalachian Spring (one of my all time favorite pieces ever) comes from the song Simple Gifts.</p>

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<p>We did the same thing, at the teacher’s direction. We were told to “write reports” on various topics, and the one source we were to use was the World Book Encyclopedia. It was supposed to be teaching us to use an encyclopedia. When you are told to use one source and one source only, rephrasing that source is about all you can do.</p>

<p>I think that it’s taken a few years for teachers in K-12 to learn how to teach kids to not plagarize from sources online. Folks my age always researched with books and for a while, little was said about online sources.</p>

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<p>Hah and on the Princeton example I’d give the kid in number 2 and A+ for being able to decipher and restate a garbled overly high toned paragraph into something readable. Actually, paragraph 2 is in my opinion much different from para 1. It is structurally similar, however it provides more clear detail. “a play about acting and the theater” in sentence one means more than “latent theater.” The specific detail of pointing to Act 1 and referencing Hamlet’s “mission to revenge his father’s murder” as opposed to “the heart of his mystery” (rolleyes) says something as opposed to gobbledygook. Similarly in the last sentence, the term, “demonstrates the foolishness of exaggerated expressions of emotion” adds clarity and depth. Mmm. In my opinion kid number 2 used similar structure but added depth and quality within that structure.</p>

<p>Furthermore, the Princeton example (thanks Garland) in paragraph 3 states, "When paraphrasing, it’s absolutely necessary (1) to use your own words and structure, and (2) to place a citation at the end of the paraphrase to acknowledge that the content is not original. " Now honestly, I ask you. If you are using your own words and structure, in what way are you paraphrasing? I guess if you borrow someone else’s idea you have to completely state it in different words and structure? I know people who would slam you for misdescribing (is that a word?) their idea if you gave attribution but totally revamped structure and words. An idea with no words or structure. Hmmmmm. Is there such a thing? Perhaps.</p>

<p>Glad I studied science.</p>

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<p>I would be scared to write a college research paper these days, as I do believe some of my work might be considered plaguerism, though at the time I certainly did not think it was. Scary. Like Mathmom, I would have to footnote every single thing. I guess I don’t have an original thought in my brain, and if I thought I did, I’d be scared that it didn’t exist anywhere. </p>

<p>This might explain my kids’ “off the wall” papers and ideas. They never got into any trouble about plaguerism with their bad papers.</p>

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<p>Garland, thanks for that excellent example. It is sinking slowly in my head to something understandable.</p>

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<p>I have heard that lots of PhD candidates are doing everything but their dissertation because accusations of plagarism are so rampant. Don’t know if that’s true, or an excuse.</p>

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<p>Many university CS departments have automated software checkers that check program lab submissions against the submissions of other students and other past students. Students sometimes change all of the variable names and comments in a program but the same structure will result in the same or similar symbol tables and compiler structures which can be compared with other program submissions. Often undergraduate students don’t understand this (most CS students don’t take a compilers course and those that do usually take it in their senior year because of the prereqs).</p>

<p>Given this, I can see why colleges are really strict in CS - the frequent case is where a student picks another student’s listings out of the trash and uses the code or where one student shares their code with another (usually against the honor code), inadvertently.</p>

<p>There are articles floating around on the web about Stanford with the CS department identifying more plagiarism than any other department. That’s because it is easy to catch; not because CS students necessarily plagiarize more than other students. The thing about Stanford CS student plagiarizing is that they know that they are violating the honor code - the gray line isn’t there as it is with writing essays.</p>

<p>I think that expulsion is an extreme reaction - one strike and you’re out. I would prefer something like having to take English 101 over again in the case where it isn’t clear-cut.</p>

<p>I think that the issue with writing essays isn’t as clear-cut as it is in CS.</p>