Faculty Resources - English:

The Internet and Plagiarism

The advent of the World Wide Web and virtually limitless access to material has increased both the incidence of student plagiarism and the difficulty of detection for instructors.  Rather than devote energy to detection alone or rely on services such as Turnitin.com, OWEAC recommends that instructors focus on prevention of plagiarism through assignment design. 

Although instructors are most likely unable to design a foolproof assignment, several curricular strategies may curtail student opportunity and inclination to plagiarize.

• Make sure that students understand that web sources should be treated like print sources:  materials and information obtained through the Internet must be attributed.  In particular, remind students that pictures, graphics and other images must also be cited.
• In order to help students differentiate between types of Internet sources, faculty themselves must keep up with current citation practices in the field and should use and assign the most recent style guides.
• Help students devise strategies for critical reading, annotation of texts and appropriate note taking.  Even if teaching a course unrelated to research writing, make sure that students recognize the value of reading deeply and critically.
• Model appropriate behavior:  be diligent about citing your own sources in handouts, overheads, presentations, etc.
• Consider using no more than a couple of themes in a course and structure writing assignments around the deep exploration of these themes, allowing students to write about a theme from a variety of perspectives. 
• Construct assignments that are specific to materials read and discussed in class rather than using broad or "open" topics—assignments may even be limited to issues generated through class discussion.
• Consider assigning comparison and contrast essays that pair a well-known, canonical work with a lesser-known non-canonical work; or, assign synthesis essays, which require students to apply a theoretical text to a primary work.  If doing the latter, dedicate class time to explain and model appropriate paraphrasing.
• Require that students utilize a writing process and demonstrate the stages of this process: assign proposals, progress reports, rough draft workshops, etc.  At a minimum, instructors should see more than one draft of any given paper that draws on outside sources.
• Collect student summaries along with a copy of the original source, if only the page from which the student's quotation or paraphrase is drawn.
• Use class time for discussion and refinement of paper topics.  Even in courses unrelated to composition, instructors can dedicate some class time to topic exploration and thesis development.  Collect materials related to these activities.
• The WPA observes that a necessary component of curtailing plagiarism involves faculty workload:  instructors must have sufficient time to mentor students through a writing process and to provide timely feedback on written work.
• The NCTErecommendations for class size are as follows:
  • Writing classes should be limited to 20 students and developmental courses capped at 15.
  • Faculty should have no more than 60 students in writing courses in any given term.
  • Literature sections that are discussion-based should be capped at 25.
  • If faculty are expected to perform any administrative work, publish or develop curricula, their workload must be reduced.