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The Plague of Plagiarism

© Rebecca Kojetin

When I first started teaching high school almost 20 years ago, the most common source students would use in plagiarizing their paper on any given novel was Cliff’s Notes. If writing a research paper, students might copy an encyclopedia article or portions of the books they found in the school library. These episodes of cheating were easy to spot and it was easy to locate the material that the student copied. Now, however, students can access a wealth of material over the Internet and with the right program, cut and paste a paper that does not contain any words of their own. What is more alarming that the increase of students who plagiarize papers, is the fact that they do not feel one bit guilty and do not see it as stealing.

I have, over the years, discovered a number of students who have plagiarized part or all of their paper or their speech presentation. Some have been easy to identify since they sounded like something I had read before, and upon checking their sources, I have found the exact wording that appeared in their paper. Some were too close to another student’s paper. In any case, the consequence was an F on the paper. Now, however, it seems to students that it is easier to get away with plagiarism. They can cut and paste various parts of other people’s websites, but even alarming, students can obtain or buy a paper that has already been written or have a paper custom written for them.

Numerous sources have cited laziness as a major cause of plagiarism; however, I tend to believe that there are other reasons that many students plagiarize: procrastination, over-involved in school and community activities as well as sports, and parents’ expectations for their son or daughter to get that A so that they can get into the college of their choice or even so that they can have lower car insurance.

So what’s a teacher to do?

One of the first defenses against plagiarism in the classroom is to know each and every student’s writing style. Although this is wonderful in theory, for most English teachers in education today, this is a monumental undertaking since many teach upwards to 150 students. How, then, is an English teacher or any other teacher who requires the students to write essays or do research to be able to get the students to write their own material and discourage plagiarism? In teaching the research process, I have used several techniques to hopefully deter student’s use of plagiarism.