Plagiarism Guide for Faculty

From Keeping plagiarism at bay in the Internet age at APA:

• Clear up the confusion. Explain to students up-front what plagiarism is, in all its forms, to prevent students from doing it inadvertently. Students also need to know that plagiarism is cheating and that it's wrong
• Set rules. Spell out what happens when students plagiarize.
• Ask that students highlight cited text. Yet another way to pre-empt plagiarism is requiring students to submit all the articles used for a paper--with the sections they've cited clearly marked.
• Limit the sources students use. Professors can also direct students to specific sources for their papers, making it easier to tell when students "lift" material.
• Assign phased papers. Another strategy is requiring students to write just one paper over the course of a semester and having them submit the papers in stages, from the initial outline through several drafts.
• Check students' work. If students know you check, they're less likely to cheat, says Roig. He, for example, requires students to submit their papers electronically, so that he can run an electronic plagiarism-detection program on them.

From Tips for Preventing Plagiarism among College Students at Faculty Focus:

• Get to know your students. Early on in the course, low-stakes assignments that ask students to introduce themselves or discuss their goals for the course help provide a baseline if you need to compare a suspect essay against their writing style and stated interests.
• Require up-to-date research. Paper mills often use older sources or don’t pay attention to the dates. Make it harder for students to buy their papers by requiring that all sources be no more than five years old.
• Require revisions. Writing is a process and by making students submit an outline and drafts of a paper, you’re creating another barrier to plagiarism.
• Require a journal. If students know they will need to discuss their research, how they arrived at their topic and thesis statement, and the problems they encountered, they will be less likely to submit unoriginal work.
• Vary the audience. Require students to write papers for different audiences and to use specific vocabulary, structural approach and research components in each paper.

From A Positive Solution for Plagiarism from The Chronicle of Higher Education:

General guidelines for an effective response to plagiarism:

• The solution should be positive; that is, show students how to act as responsible scholars and writers. The same tone should be reflected in the syllabus. I have seen many syllabi in which the penalties for plagiarism are laid out in excruciating detail, with no positive models or behavior mentioned. Surely by now we know that positive motivation trumps the negative variety.
• It should help students avoid plagiarism rather than focus on our catching it.
• The solution should objectively strengthen both students and teachers.
• It should also make students and teachers feel as though they are stronger.

Some approaches whose weaknesses contribute to the seemingly endless discussions of plagiarism:

• Draconian consequences
  • Strength: If applied consistently, without regard for extenuating circumstances, this approach seems to work particularly well for teachers who are both imperious and admired by their students. 
  • Weakness: Instructors who use this tactic set an adversarial tone at the beginning of a course. 
• Preventive construction
  • Strength: Rethinking assignments—freshening them up—often produces new energy in a course.
  • Weakness: The approach often means devising assignments with a narrow scope. 
• Dedicated Discussion
  • Strength: Some students may not understand what constitutes plagiarism or its consequences.
  • Weakness: Merely talking with students, especially about a critical topic, is a poor way to ensure that they will act correctly.

A workable solution:

The first writing assignment I give students in my writing courses involves plagiarism as a topic.

• I ask them to investigate and read resources on the Web assembled by experts on the subject such as Nick Carbone, a new-media consultant for Bedford/St. Martin's, and Bruce Leland, a professor emeritus at Western Illinois University. I ask students to take notes on the readings, especially on how both authors are unhappy with standard approaches to preventing plagiarism and academic dishonesty.
  • I tell them to pay special attention to Carbone's discussion of Dos and don'ts, a list he developed after deciding that his previous approaches to fighting plagiarism adopted an inappropriate tone, and to Leland's extensive list of resources that instructors can use to deal with plagiarism.
• Then I ask students to find a Web site that offers free essays for download.
  • Each student has to download one paper (or as much of one as is permitted by the site) and analyze its strengths and weaknesses. 

The idea is for students to read materials written by teachers for teachers, rather than something written just for students. The explicit lesson is for them to learn about plagiarism and academic dishonesty. An implicit lesson is that instructors already are aware of free papers and other Internet dodges.