While we may not at first think that plagiarism impacts future social work practice, it may be helpful to consider this question: “If a student can allow herself to plagiarize an academic paper, will he/she be fabricating client records or submitting false billing in a few years?” (Collins & Amodeo, 2005: 530).
We are all likely familiar with the challenge of grading papers in the Internet age given students’ ability to “lift” entire paragraphs (or more) directly into a paper from a website. Click here to see a webcast entitled Plagiarism in the Digital Age: Voices from the Front Lines: What’s Happening on College Campuses Today. Given this reality, the Committee on Technology has decided to distribute this memorandum in order to support you in your teaching efforts and in the effort to prevent plagiarism among social work students.
Common types of Internet-related plagiarism:
According to definitions discussed on plagiarism.org, all of the following are considered to be plagiarism (and in our estimation comprise the types of plagiarism that we see most at the School of Social Work): “failing to put a quotation in quotation marks, giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation, changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit, copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not.”
What we have seen vis-a-vis Internet-related plagiarism at the School of Social Work:
• Cutting and pasting of sentences or paragraphs from the Internet or HTML documents on the library’s database page. This is usually visible in gray text vs. “written in” text which defaults to black).
• Cutting and pasting directly from Adobe Acrobat (PDF) documents
• Copying blog postings or papers posted to the Internet
• Purchasing a paper on the Internet (a quick Google search led directly to a website where students could purchase social work-specific papers, click here).
Online resources for instructors:
Turnitin.org
As far as we can tell, this is the premier site that can support both instructors and students with respect to plagiarism prevention and detection. However, there is a fee for this service and people have to join. This website can integrate with both WebCT/Blackboard and Moodle.com for papers turned in online via the “assignment drop box” for example. Click here for more information on integration.
Google.com
During the grading process, sometimes you can detect “chunks” of language that don’t seem to fit the student. You can enter text line by line in the google search bar - using quotation marks (e.g. "text") either by typing it in or by cutting and pasting from an electronic document. If you use the website Plagiarismchecker.com you can add in paragraphs at a time for searching.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure
Talk with your students about plagiarism - refer them to the definition in the BSW/MSW student handbook. Tell them that you will be checking for plagiarism - and that you will be taking this issue seriously.
You can let them know about various online resources available to them - some of them free - some of them for a fee (such as http://writecheck.turnitin.com/static/home.html $4.95 per paper, 1 resubmission allowed).
The Committee on Technology at the School of Social Work at Salem State College does not recommend any of these tools - but we want to make you aware that they exist!
On May 27, 2003, the School of Social Work's faculty approved the following Statement on Academic Dishonesty and Plagiarism:
"Salem State College assumes that all students come to the College with serious educational intent and expects them to be mature, responsible individuals who will exhibit high standards of honesty and personal conduct in their academic life. All forms of academic dishonesty, including plagiarism, are considered to be serious offenses against the College community."
The faculty provided this definition of academic dishonesty: "Submitting another person’s work as one’s own. This includes, for example, copying another person’s work during examinations; purchasing papers; copying papers, reports, journal articles or portions thereof; copying material from a website; copying laboratory or computer results; and presenting material from another course or paper without proper acknowledgment, citations and references."
The formal statement on penalties for academic dishonesty at the School of Social Work: Penalties for plagiarism and academic dishonesty can include an automatic grade of F for the course as well as being reported to the Vice President, Academic Affairs, and can lead to suspension or expulsion from the College. See the current Salem State College Undergraduate and Graduate Catalogues for complete descriptions of College policies on academic dishonesty and the appeals procedures.
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