Honesty in the Academic Environment

Honesty in the Academic Environment When someone returns from the automobile repair shop and tells his friends, "I just fixed the transmission in my car," or when someone returns from a funeral and says, "I just had to bury my mother," most people intuitively recognize that these individuals caused these things to happen with the assistance of others rather than claiming to have done them personally. The situation is much different, though, when it comes to putting words on paper and claiming authorship.

When someone says, "I wrote a paper," people accept at face value that the words that were used in the paper were the author's alone unless otherwise indicated and that the author did not receive any substantive assistance from anyone else in its preparation. In the Age of Information, though, it is an easy matter to "borrow" relevant material from countless sources and cobble together a paper on almost any topic in ways that defy detection and make the temptation to engage in plagiarism compelling.

To determine the current state of affairs concerning plagiarism in the academic environment today, this paper provides a review of the relevant juried and scholarly literature concerning honesty in the academic environment in general and plagiarism in particular. An analysis of how plagiarism can be prevented is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion. Review and Discussion First and foremost, an understanding of what types of literary acts constitute plagiarism is in order.

In this regard, the definition provided by Black's Law Dictionary (1991) states that plagiarism is "the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one's own mind" (p. 1150). In addition, Black's (1991) notes that in the event such material is copyrighted, acts of plagiarism may also constitute a copyright infringement offense as well.

This all seems fairly straightforward and it would appear reasonable to suggest that most people recognize when they have improperly or inappropriately used material from others and take steps to avoid doing so whenever possible. Indeed, some students may take great pains to avoid engaging in plagiarism but will still end up doing to inadvertently through any number of mistakes made during the creative writing process.

For example, some writers may prefer to "rough out" a draft by copying-and-pasting material from relevant sources and then returning to the project to edit it and complete the interpolation of the material with their own thoughts and observations. It is easy enough to overlook material that belongs to someone else using this type of writing approach unless great pains are taking to ensure all sources are attributed properly.

Likewise, some writers may believe that by changing a few words here and there and properly citing the material, no plagiarism has occurred since attribution was made and the original material was changed. Although precise definitions vary from institution to institution, it appears that most students recognize when they have failed to paraphrase sufficiently or otherwise engaged in acts of plagiarism. According to Willen (2004), "As director of a freshman writing program, I frequently deal with incidents of and issues related to plagiarism.

I never cease to be surprised by the fact that many students who plagiarize are bright, well-intentioned students who, in fact, do know better" (p. 55). The results of a recent survey of college students in the United States found that fully 38% of these students conceded that they had committed some type of "cut and paste" plagiarism using Internet sources during the survey year, and an even higher percentage (40%) admitted to plagiarizing from written sources (Willen, 2004).

Certainly, "cutting and pasting" digital information into one's own paper is not the issue, nor is the use of other written sources in compiling a literary project. After all, teachers want their students to conduct extensive research for their writing projects and to incorporate relevant material in appropriate ways to demonstrate research ability and critical thinking skills. The problem arises, though, when such material is used improperly and therein lays the essence of the issue of plagiarism.

In this regard, Willen points out that, "Incidents of plagiarism persist, and they are probably on the rise. This persistence, in spite of efforts to teach students what plagiarism is, why it is unethical, and how to avoid it, makes clear that the circumstances which lead a student to choose to plagiarize are considerably more complicated than the omnipresence of the Internet or simply not knowing any better" (p. 56).

As noted above, the simple act of copying another's work is not the fundamental issue involved; the issue involved in plagiarism is how that material is used. Given the overt nature of the act of copying material from another, it is also reasonable to suggest that even when students have been provided with minimal guidance concerning what constitutes plagiarism, most will readily recognize when they are crossing the line.

This observation is congruent with Willen's statement that, "In fact, the high percentage of students who willingly admitted to 'cut and paste' plagiarism is evidence enough that they do know what they are doing" (p. 56). Complicating matters is the perception that exists among some students that even if they are "borrowing" material from others, as long as it is presented in a new way or in a different medium, nothing illegal or unethical has been done.

One educational consultant, Villano (2006), cites the case of a student who had copied four pages of material in their entirety from the Internet and reorganized it into a brochure on the subject. According to Villano, "She understood it was plagiarism, but didn't feel she had done anything wrong. She had put a lot of time and effort into getting the sources from the internet. By putting all of it into a different medium, she honestly thought it would be okay" (2006, p. 24).

Like the growing tendency among young people to want to acquire and share music without necessarily paying for it, there is a similar tendency gaining steam that indicates many students do not view plagiarism in the same light as their teachers. For instance, Villano notes that, "With veritable libraries at their fingertips, students see nothing wrong with borrowing a sentence or paragraph or page from something they find online. What's more, the prevalence of e-mail and instant messaging makes sharing derivative material easier than ever before" (2006, p. 24).

If these were victimless crimes without any corresponding stakes involved, these perceptions might have some rationale basis. For example, if someone on a desert island equipped only with Internet access and a word processor churns out plagiarized material day after day for years, there would be little or no actual social harm involved.

Unfortunately, the stakes are high in academia and students who plagiarize are not only denying themselves the opportunity to become effective researchers and writers, they have harming their peers who take the time and trouble to ensure that the material they craft is able to pass academic muster. In this regard, Villano emphasizes that, "On the flipside, teachers are far too busy to track down original sources unless the offense is obvious.

The result is education's own Wild West, in which ideas are stolen and repurposed without retribution, hurting those students who actually produce original work" (p. 25). From the perspective of one professor, at least, some teachers are at least partially responsible for creating the desire on the part of their students to plagiarize. According to Puka (2005), conflicting deadlines imposed by several instructors and an apparent disregard for the students themselves creates a situation where cheating is almost obligatory in order to survive academically.

Yet other students may engage in plagiarism even if they do not have to because it represents a challenge and is regarded as "beating the system." In this regard, Puka suggests that this is a good place to start to prevent future recurrences of plagiarism: "What cheating shows that merits strong opposition is a student's pride in deceptively 'getting over' on professors and 'the system,' even where both are recognized as fair.

This affection for injustice and casual disregard for honest dealings must be trained out of students along with the jaded immaturity involved" (p. 32). In addition, it is important to emphasize that "cheaters never win and winners never cheat" since such acts represent a threat to the academic integrity that is essential in ensuring an equitable playing field for all of the stakeholders involved.

As Puka concludes, "Accompanying rationalizations must also be confronted -- rationalizations that mask to the cheater how pathetic, embarrassing, childish, sleazy, and incompetent it is to steal others' answers because one couldn't even think up one's own. That's kindergarten" (p. 33). In order to confront students who engage in plagiarism in the first place, though, these students must be identified and proof positive of their transgressions provided. According to Villano (2006), the same technology that is making "cutting-and-pasting" plagiarism easier than ever can also be used for this purpose.

One of the approaches being used by educators to detect instances of plagiarism is to simply type (or copy and paste) suspect phrases into a Web browser such.