Plagiarism, Kids, and the Web What Can You Do? May 6, :30 am – 10:45 am Gail Junion-Metz

What Schools are Saying… “If you didn’t think of it and write it all on your own, and you didn’t cite (or write down) the sources where you found the ideas or words, it’s probably plagiarism” From Student Cheating and Plagiarism in the Internet Era by Ann Lathrop and Kathleen Foss. Libraries Unlimited, 2000

What Students are Saying… “It’s a lot of fun to outwit the system… whose fault is it? Is it mine because I’m smart enough to do this, or it is the school’s because they’re too dumb to catch me?” From “Digital Deception” by Kevin Bushweller, Electronic School, March 1999

Why Students Plagiarize… u Students don’t really know what plagiarism is u They don’t manage their time well u Students don’t record where facts or ideas come when they’re doing research

Why Students Plagiarize… u Some think plagiarism, like computer hacking, is a game u They get pressure from other students to try and ‘get away with it’ u They believe that many of their teachers are ‘clueless’ about Web-based paper mills

Sites That Can Help… u Teach students how to do research and document their sources u Research Rocket – How to do Research Research Rocket – How to do Research u Nuts and Bolts of the Big6 Game Nuts and Bolts of the Big6 Game u TILT TILT u A+ Research and Writing A+ Research and Writing

Sites That Can Help… u Teach students how and when to create bibliographical citations u Landmark Citation Machine Landmark Citation Machine u EasyBib Citation Generator EasyBib Citation Generator u Citation Game Citation Game u Parenthetical References Parenthetical References

Sites That Can Help… u Teach students about copyright and information ethics u Copyright Kids Copyright Kids u Cyberbee Copyright Cyberbee Copyright u The Educator’s Guide to Copyright & Fair Use The Educator’s Guide to Copyright & Fair Use u Copyright Resources Copyright Resources

Sites That Can Help… u Teach students what plagiarism is, and how to recognize when they may be plagiarizing u But I Changed the Words (PA) But I Changed the Words u Plagiarism Workshop Plagiarism Workshop u Avoiding Plagiarism Avoiding Plagiarism u The Plagiarism Court – You Be the Judge The Plagiarism Court – You Be the Judge u On Plagiarism On Plagiarism

Detecting Plagiarism u METHOD 1 Identify distinctive phrases (2-3 words) in student papers. Search for them using a search engine such as Google Google u METHOD 2 Search for a relevant subject using a Web search tool. Once you find a suspect source, use your browser’s ‘find’ tool to locate distinctive phrases from student papers tool

Detecting Plagiarism u METHOD 3 Search online databases (EBSCO, ProQuest) and CD-ROM reference tools. Keyword search for distinctive phrases from student papers  METHOD 4 Search well-known ‘page mill’ sites under various topics. Once you find a suspect source, use your browser’s ‘find’ tool to locate distinctive phrases from student paperssites

A Few ‘Page Mill’ Websites u OPPapers u Anti-Essays u BigNerds.Com u EssayWorld

Spotting ‘Page Mill’ Papers u Citations are in a different style sheet format than the one required u Page margins are inconsistent from page to page u Papers contain unusual formatting, spelling, or capitalization errors u There are page numbering and page break inconsistencies

Spotting ‘Page Mill’ Papers u There are underlined URLs in the paper u There are no citations to recent books or articles u You find text like ‘Thanks for using cheater.com’ or page mill URLs printed somewhere on the page u Some text prints as gray… which indicates that it was in a different color when displayed on a computer screen

Making Papers Hard to Spot Students can make it hard for teachers (and plagiarism software) to identify papers downloaded from ‘page mills’ by… - using spelling/grammar-check programs to slightly modify the text - using online translators to translate a paper into a foreign language and then back into Englishtranslators

So What Can You Do? Review your district’s ‘Academic Integrity Policy’ with students. (If your district doesn’t have one… lobby for one)Policy Update your ‘Internet Acceptable Use Policy’ to state that page mills are ‘off-limits’ to students at school, in the library, and at home If your school/library uses filtering software, add page mill sites to the list of blocked sitesPolicy

Alerting Teachers u Print sample ‘cheat’ papers so teachers can see what’s available u Post ‘page mill’ topics that relate to assignments on a staff bulletin board u Create bookmarks on a staff computer to ‘page mill’ sites so that teachers can explore them

Alerting Teachers u Show teachers how simple and fast it is to find, download, and create a paper using a ‘page mill’ u Show teachers how a student can use a word processor or language translator to make the source of a paper hard to detect

Discouraging Plagiarism u Create assignments that ask students to analyze or evaluate information u Use current topics or unique events as assignment topics, as there will be fewer ‘page mill’ papers on them u Assign students to write about a topic, giving personal examples or explaining their personal reactions/experiences in relation to it

Discouraging Plagiarism u Create assignments that have students conduct a survey or gather opinions about a topic and incorporate them into the paper u Assign students to write about very narrowly focused topics rather than broad general ones

Discouraging Plagiarism u Have students summarize what they have learned in the process of working on their assignment u Have students do brief presentations based on their written assignments u Ask students to include the call number of each paper source they use, and include a date with citations to website URLs

Discouraging Plagiarism u Have students photocopy and submit the text of sources that they cite u Tell students in advance that you will randomly check the text of their papers… to make sure the source cited is correct… and to make sure the text didn’t come from a ‘page mill’ site

Discouraging Plagiarism u Have students turn in preliminary outlines and drafts, bibliographies, and final drafts of papers well before the final version is due u Change paper topics each semester or each year u Have students create an annotated bibliography that includes a summary of each source and an evaluation of its usefulness

Learn More About It… For more research, citation, copyright, and plagiarism links go to…

Read More About It… Lathrop, Ann & Kathleen Foss. Student Cheating and Plagiarism in the Internet Era. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, Bowman, Vibiana. The Plagiarism Plague. New York, Neal Schuman, 2004.

This PowerPoint presentation can be found at

Gail Junion-Metz Information Age Consultants 310 North Bridge Street DeWitt, MI (517)