UA finds ways to help students avoid plagiarism

By: Jessica Burk

Posted: 9/12/08

Plagiarism has been a problem among UA students in the last few years, according to statistics from the Office of Community Standards and Student Ethics.

In the 2005-06 school year, 147 cases of academic dishonesty were reported, and 66 of those cases were regarding plagiarism, said Sandra Vasquez, OCSSE assistant director.

In the 2007-08 school year, 123 cases of academic dishonesty were reported, 50 of those being cases of plagiarism, she said.

In response to these numbers, the Enhanced Learning Center, the Quality Writing Center and the OCSSE are offering a free workshop for UA students called "Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism."

Carolyn Wisniewski, a former UA graduate student, designed the program. In this workshop, UA doctoral student Grant Bain, who has been presenting the workshop since its beginning two years ago, explains to students what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

Plagiarism, in its simplest form, is taking other people's ideas, words or arguments without giving them credit and passing those ideas off as original, whether it is intentional or not, said UA graduate assistant Kelly Westeen.

"Technically, taking any idea and representing it as your own [is plagiarism]," Bain said.

Plagiarism can range from things such as copying and pasting information to using photographs, charts, graphs and statistics without attributing the information, he said.

Minor forms of plagiarism include not using quotation marks properly and paraphrasing and summarizing incorrectly, he said.

"When in doubt, go ahead and cite," Bain said.

Because the university has a "no excuses" policy, students should familiarize themselves with the student handbook, Westeen said. The handbook can be found on the OCSSE Web site.

"You have to know what [plagiarism] is and what it constitutes," Westeen said. "Also, just talk to someone on campus."

Most students plagiarize because of time-management issues or because they feel their writing isn't up to par, she said. Resources on campus that can help students with questions they may have are the QWC, located in Kimpel Hall, and the ELC, located in Gregson Hall.

Westeen also advised students to meet with their instructors during their office hours to discuss papers before turning them in.

"It's always better to talk to people," she said.

Students should avoid plagiarism because it is robbing them of the goal of education, which is to learn how to think critically about a source, Westeen said.

Plagiarism hurts the author of the piece and the other students in the class, and it also "diminishes the value of a university degree for both you and other people on campus," she said.

Bain also advised students to try not to plagiarize.

"We will know [if you plagiarize]," he said. "We don't expect you to be master thinkers. That's why you're students."

There are several levels of jurisdiction for students who do try to plagiarize, he said. The student can fail the assignment or the class or might be referred to the UA Judicial Board.

"In serious cases, there can be legal consequences [or] academic consequences, at the very least," Westeen said. "Mostly university policy [ranges from giving] a zero on a paper to actually being expelled from university if it's a continued problem that a student is having."

One of the more serious cases of plagiarism Westeen has encountered was when she was teaching at Northern Michigan University, she said. Her students were writing a descriptive paper about personal experience they had, and one of her students turned in a paper about a Native American reservation in the desert. However, the writing style didn't match up with anything the student had done before.

"I typed it into Google, and the entire paper popped up," Westeen said.

After being confronted, the student claimed she'd written the paper in high school, posted it online afterward, and the other person, who had it copyrighted, had stolen it from her.

"[The case] went all the way to the dean, [and] she never admitted to plagiarizing the paper," Westeen said.

Students often copy and paste information, and one of Bain's colleagues even had a case of students sharing a paper between classes, he said.

"I'd like to think that I scare my students enough not to try [plagiarizing]," he said.

Many UA students don't think plagiarism is a good idea.

"You're only hurting yourself when you're doing it," said James Abrahamson, a senior information systems major. "You came to college to learn. If you cheat your way through it, what's the point in going to college at all?"

Plagiarism is cheating oneself, "because you really aren't getting anything from [a] class if you plagiarize from [others'] work," said Susan Kufdakis, a senior sociology major. "If you're [going to] plagiarize, you might as well not go to class because you'll be learning nothing."

Students interested in learning more about avoiding plagiarism can register for the workshop online at elc.uark.edu.

More workshops concerning plagiarism will take place throughout October.