Plagiarism in the 21st century

As the article "The New Plagiarism: Seven Antidotes to Prevent Highway Robbery in an Electronic Age" points out, academic dishonesty has far more potential sources and outlets in the Internet age. The ease with which students can plagiarize makes the potential and likelihood that much easier (no more hand-copying word for word from the resource books).

I have seen different teachers deal with this challenge in a variety of ways, from creating extremely specific assignments or prompts, to requiring that the students do all work in class under supervision, but as this article points out, the challenge of discouraging plagiarism can be well-met by requiring higher level thinking through assigning research that deals with essential questions. I believe that getting the students to personally engage with the topic and personalize it to their own lives and to the human experience (at least where this is possible, such as in the social sciences) is the best method for discouraging plagiarism. It is difficult to incorporate personal voice into a piece patched together from other sources. Additionally, I require that students show me their work in progress, which makes using purchased/ downloaded essays much more difficult.

Overall, though, I believe that instilling a desire for deeper, critical thinking in students is one of the key components to discouraging academic dishonesty. The reality is that the more interested in personally engaging with the topic, the more likely the student is to really do the work. This article suggests that teaching students to use technology as a support, for researching, searching, and storing info is important, and it also indicates how important it is to help students separate their ideas from the information in the sources they research from. To me, this suggests so much potential for empowering students, because as students come to see the value in their own ideas, they will want to engage more with the topic, and hopefully this will encourage their original thought.

Nonetheless, I realize that students are still inclined to look for shortcuts, and so I teach proper documentation of sources, I require notes (with sources listed for my reference), and I demand drafts of the research in progress. I also help my students to be aware of the ease with which educators, and other professionals (college applications counselors, anyone?) can locate plagiarized material. I want to educate my students to help them see what is and is not appropriate, instill in them pride in their own work and effort, and help them to see why plagiarism is unethical.