© Joy McGregor 2003 1 Plagiarism: Sin or Symptom? Joy H. McGregor, Ph.D. Charles Sturt University...

© Joy McGregor 2003 1

Plagiarism: Sin or Symptom?Joy H. McGregor, Ph.D.Charles Sturt University

School of Information StudiesTeacher Librarianship


The ideal…


What do teachers assume will be gained by asking students to

do library research? Locate information from multiple

sources Become familiar with resources Deal with ambiguity Analyse and evaluate information Organise thinking Synthesise the information


More gains:

Develop a specific focus Relate ideas to one another Learn new content Develop new interests


What should they gain by writing research papers?

They should learn to: organise information in a logical

sequence express ideas cogently communicate ideas with others in a

commonly understood format


At what point do they learn these skills?

Not clear Sometimes teachers think that early

primary children are too young to begin this process

Secondary teachers assume they’ve learned it

Seems to leave it up to the later primary years

Complex process: isn’t learned quickly or easily


My experience…

made me doubt concerned me--no engagement, skills

lacking


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What’s going on?

Why are these sites popular? What’s happening when students turn to

these sites? What’s not happening?


Purpose

What is the nature of higher order thinking skills carried out by gifted students gathering and using information to write research papers?


Canadian study

School: suburban communityclose to a large urban area

Students:grade 11 (16-17 years old) International Baccalaureate


Canadian study (cont’d)

Subjects:EnglishSocial Studies

Teachers:2 English teachers1 Social Studies teacher


Adult Intervention

Librarian introduced materials Was available for assistance Circulated, offering help

Teachers Variable: from active assistance to

ignoring


Task: Research paper

A topic related to Elizabethan England and/or Shakespeare

Was the Reign of Terror an inevitable product of the French Revolution?


What did students do?

Were assigned or chose topics in the classroom

Received instruction on the requirements of the assignment

Located information and took notes in the library

Wrote papers at home


Researcher behaviour

Trained students to think aloud Observed Interviewed Examined notes, drafts, papers Examined original sources



Process/product…


Categories of Information Use

Levels that don’t involve copying: A No copying and no evidence of

paraphrasing B Paraphrasing, doesn't closely

resemble original (not copying).

_________________________________


E Copied word for word for the most part. May involve some omissions, slight rearranging, minimal changing of tenses, minimal use of synonyms.



D Copying, with phrases rearranged, omitted, some words added. Occasional synonyms used.




C Paraphrasing, can easily recognise original pattern of sentences and paragraphs, but many words have been changed


Types of papers

1

2

No copying. Includes categories A and/or B with no C, D, E

Primarily categories A and/or B, with limited examples of categories C, D, or E (less than 15%)


Types of papers

3

4

5

*

Contains between 15% and 29% of categories C, D, or E.

Contains between 30% and 49% of categories C, D, or E

Contains 50% or more of categories C, D, or E.

Contains 50% or more of categories D or E.


Tendency to plagiarise:

High degree of copying Range: from exact duplication (E)

to Some words changed, but sentence

and paragraph patterns the same (C)

28 © Joy McGregor 2003

Copying Scores, D and E Level

% of English papers

(no copying)

31.3

(less than 15% of paper copied)

21.9

(15-29% of paper copied)

15.6

(30-49% of paper copied)

12.5

(50% or more of paper copied)

18.8

29 © Joy McGregor 2003

Final Mark Compared With Copying Score

ENGLISH

n Mean (%)

Range (%)

Copy score=Type 4 or 5 (30% or more copied)

16 85.2 68 - 100

Copy score= Type 1 or 2 (little or no copying)

11 76.4 68 - 88


Processes

Some students talked about processes


"I have to talk out my ideas in order to understand what I'm thinking" (student quote).


“As I was eating breakfast I was thinking about the revolution and I was thinking that ... a historian ... was against the revolution because it moved too fast, and I'm going to expand on that, such as events that might not have happened, such as the king might have been more complacent if the Revolution moved slower, he might not have tried to flee the country” (student quote).


“I thought, well, at least I get to write about something interesting. Uh, I kinda wondered, 'cause most of our essay topics before, we'd already studied what we were going to have to write about. We didn't actually have to do the studying ourselves. So this time, it was different. It's not much more difficult. Actually I almost think it's better this way, that we get to ...


...study about it in the first place and then we get to formulate our own ideas and our own thoughts on it and then write an essay about that topic. Um, it's just very different. I think it's more work and it's a little harder to figure out what's going on when you have to figure it out for yourself, rather than have somebody tell you. I think it's more worthwhile, 'cause we'll learn it better.”


“My general opinion was that it was a good essay topic, because we were going to develop something we really hadn't touched on in class. And I thought, why not? It would be a good chance.”


Process Orientation

These were the students who didn’t plagiarise at all or very minimally


Texas Study

Similar research methods Students of mixed ability Teacher warned strongly against

plagiarism Resulted in lower levels of blatant

plagiarism (Categories D and E)…



But…

Massive amounts of quotation, cited both correctly and incorrectly

“Copying” in this case means “recording someone else’s words, whether or not credit is given”



Analysis of Citation errors:

Word for word, cited, but no quotation marks

Very close to identical, cited, but no quotation marks


Citation errors (cont’d)

Wrong source entirelyOther source in bibliog.Not in any source listedCombined two, cited a third

Often found between citations to same source


Citation errors (cont’d)

Citing correct source incorrectlyWrong pageCombining two, citing one but not

the otherOnly a portion of the quote, while

using more


Errors within the quotation

SpellingMis-spelled from source to

notecard, then repeated in paperMis-spelled from card to paper

(e.g. dissection became direction)


Citation error continuum

Trying to do it

right but

misunderstanding

the format: can’t

assume much

about their thinking

Blindly following

rules to satisfy

requirements:

gives impression

of lack of

engagement


Is higher level thinking going on?

The revised Bloom’s taxonomy: highest level is Creating

“Put elements together to form a coherent functional whole; reorganise elements into a new pattern or structure” (Anderson and Krathwohl)


We are treating only symptoms.

What is the disease?


Why is this happening?


What can we do?

Stop ignoring copying Treat the disease, not just the

symptoms


How?

Challenge students with more stimulating questions

Encourage student engagement--encourage active learning

Start early and keep at it Stop abandoning students Emphasize process, not just product


Teaching Orientation

Product Process

Desired student strategy

Reproduce knowledge

Construct knowledge

Interaction

Group instruction

One-on-one

Instruction

Same for everyone Different for each individual

Student involvement

Passive Active

End result

Reproduction Construction


Strategies for encouraging process orientation

I-Search process Webquests Concept mapping and mind mapping

Handout available at:

http://athene.riv.csu.edu.au/~jmcgrego/plagiarism.html

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© Joy McGregor 2003 1 Plagiarism: Sin or Symptom? Joy H. McGregor, Ph.D. Charles Sturt University...

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