Plagiarism

Teachers at Miami Beach Senior High School have recently started to incorporate the TurnItIn.com plagiarism detection service into their classes to deter students from using unauthorized work as their own. Plagiarism programs, such as “Turn it in .com”, require students to upload assignments for classes thruogh the website which will automatically verify the authenticity of the student’s work. Once an analysis is completed, the program generates a report that categorizes the plagiarism percentage of the report/essay by sources. The website has access to all online sources, publications, and reports, as well as papers by other students who have at one point in time, uploaded to Turnitin.com. Patricia Gregory, AOHT department leader and math teacher finds plagiarism to be dishonest as well as despicable, all the more fueled by the fact that almost every single one of her students has plagiarized at least once this school year. Chemistry teacher Carlos Rodriguez believes that plagiarism is always a problem for teachers because “students are taking someone else’s work and claiming it as their own. That’s the same as stealing.” Gregory supports the new plagiarism program and her claim that a majority of students have plagiarized is supported by 45% of student’s admission to cheating in an anonymous poll. “It’s pretty easy to detect,” Julie Klein, English teacher, said about plagiarized and copied work, “I don’t think I need TurnItIn.com to figure out that something’s been plagiarized.” The penalty for plagiarizing is dependent on the individual teacher involved. Some teachers give warnings for a first offense, others immediately fail the student, and other teachers have found innovative, yet effective ways to deter cheaters. Klein doesn’t call homes, but rather publicly humiliates the student. “After publicly calling them out and saying ‘oh, you’re not smart enough to do your own work so you copied from him?” Klein remarked, “well his answer was also incorrect, so not only are you a plagiarist, but you’re also stupid.’ And that totally does the trick. “ The University of North Carolina defines plagiarism as “the deliberate or reckless representation of another’s words, thoughts, or ideas as one’s own without attribution in connection with submission of academic work, whether graded or otherwise,” and explains that it’s always best to cite when a student is in doubt. It points out that by improving note taking skills, and improving time management, students will be less likely to plagiarize and clearly and effectively transcend their own ideas. “In my class, you get an F for the nine weeks,” said Eduardo Devarona. He believes a stricter penalty will prevent students from cheating because it will cause students to seriously reconsider the choices they make. The Council of Writing Program Administrators outlines five different reasons why students may resort to plagiarism: • Students may fear failure or fear taking risks in their own work. • Students may have poor time-management skills or they may plan poorly for the time and effort required for research-based writing, and believe they have no choice but to plagia¬rize. • Students may view the course, the assignment, the conventions of academic documenta¬tion, or the consequences of cheating as unimportant. • Teachers may present students with assignments so generic or unparticularized that stu¬dents may believe they are justified in looking for canned responses. • Instructors and institutions may fail to report cheating when it does occur, or may not enforce appropriate penalties. Cheating of all kinds has been a persistent problem for educators since the beginning of time. Students who panic and are left with no other outlet to complete their work generally turn to plagiarism and sell other peoples work as their own. “I don’t really think it’s someone’s first instinct to plagiarize,” Klein expressed, “I think it’s just something they do out of desperation.”