Plagiarism and Copyright and the Secondary School Student

It's big. The Internet era makes it easier than ever to plagiarize. Not only is it simple to copy and paste from web sites and online databases, but for $19.85 a page, students can purchase a research paper made to order, including a free bibliography! (See http://www.15000papers.com/customresearch.html, only one of dozens of sites selling research papers.) Not one panacea will cure students from plagiarizing. Many strategies must come into play in order for an assignment to be "plagiarize proof." With high school students, I have collaborated with teachers to integrate essential questions and higher-level questions into projects and papers, as well as requiring students to turn in notes, drafts, and working bibliographies well before the final paper is due. In his book, Beyond Technology, Jamie McKenzie presents seven antidotes to plagiarism, most very doable. Lathrop and Foss's book, Student Cheating and Plagiarism in the Internet Era, includes everything a librarian and teacher need to know about avoiding and detecting plagiarism and cheating. Their book is worth buying just for the essay by Dr. Rushworth M. Kidder, titled "Why Shouldn't I Cheat?," but has much more valuable information in addition. Below, you will find some strategies that will work together to help structure assignments so that students will be discouraged from plagiarizing.

Some immediate considerations:

• Stress citation ethics (McKenzie, 135). Teach students why citing is important and how to do it. Choose one bibliographic format for your school so students are not required to learn several--this will make the process less tedious. Have the formats available in the library or on your library's web site.
• Teach students how to paraphrase and the need for citing paraphrased information. Many students think that if they paraphrase, they don't have to cite.
• Copyright is a topic that students (and most adults) know nothing about. Presenting short lessons on copyright will heighten their awareness and hold their attention. Have available short pamphlets or web pages to which you can point students (and teachers) when questions arise.
• Structure assignments so that students won't have the opportunity to plagiarize. If students are required to use higher-level thinking when communicating
  the results of the information finding, they are less likely to "copy" because it doesn't work. They will find the answers to basic
  questions posed by their teachers or themselves, but have to use the information in a higher-level result.
  Here is a link to categories of questions that teachers and librarians can ask during the task definition phase of the
  information search. It also includes the knowledge-level questions that children will "look up in the encyclopedia."
  The thought process doesn't stop at the knowledge and recall level when children are also having to
  answer questions on the upper end of Bloom's taxonomy.
• Assess the process, not just the product. Have students turn in notes, working bibliographies, annotated bibliographies, their reactions to information found in traditional and web sources, several drafts--well before the final paper or project is due. (McKenzie and Lathrop books)
• “Have students defend their ideas, not just hand in a written paper.” Stand up to questions from peers, teachers, experts about making connections of one idea to another, discussing point of view of a cited author,defending concepts, showing evidence, speculating about next questions —Mark Gordon, consultant. (Lathrop & Foss, 174).

Good resources:
McKenzie, Jamie. Beyond Technology: Questioning, Research and the Information Literate School. Bellingham, WA: FNO Press, 2000.
Lathrop, Ann and Foss, Kathleen. Student Cheating and Plagiarism in the Internet Era: A Wake-Up Call. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 2000.

Selected Copyright Links

Copyright Issues: Multimedia and Internet Resources Using & Creating
Fair Use Guidelines For Educational Multimedia
Using Materials from the Internet: What are the Rules?
Copyright Guidelines for Web Developers: What You Can and Cannot Do On the Internet
When Copying is OK: The 'Fair Use' Rule by Stephen Fishman
The Copyright Website
The United States Copyright Office The Library of Congress
Copyright for Educators

Copyright 2001, Barbara A. Jansen.
Librarian/Technology Coordinator,
St. Andrew's Episcopal High School, Austin, TX.
Lecturer, The Graduate School of Library & Information Science,
The University of Texas at Austin.

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