Contact our Academic Integrity support team for help and more information.
In Assiniboine's Policy A25, plagiarism is defined as "using another's words, ideas, theories or images without crediting the source" (Assiniboine Community College, 2023). Sources are credited through the citations and references of American Psychological Association [APA] style. The most common sources for the work of "another" used and not cited by Assiniboine students are:
Other sources of plagiarism are:
By knowing your students and their writing style/capabilities, you'll better be able to sense when their words are not their own.
It's recommended that course outlines and assignment instructions be very clear on citing expectations in order to avoid confusion. This is especially true for:
There are many examples of Assiniboine students simply copying and pasting passages of text into their assignments without providing either citations or references. In situations like this, Policy A25 requires that instructors fill out an incident report form which is then dealt with by their Chair or Dean, depending on the level of severity or frequency.
In other examples, students will provide a reference but forget their citation, or a citation with no reference. This could mean many things, including that the students have no dishonest intentions but rather have either forgotten the citation/reference and likely need more practice in academic writing.
In establishing a culture of academic integrity, Assiniboine's Learning Commons team recommends seeing mistakes in citing as a learning opportunity rather than acts of dishonesty.
In practical terms, this means handing the assignment in question back to the student and pointing out the missing element. This practice also helps avoid "citation fixation" (Stephens, 2014) and "citation obsession" (Schick, 2011), which in turn contribute to negative, punitive, and reactive rule compliance cultures (Bertram Gallant, 2008) that research recommends avoiding.
Eaton (2021) recommends focusing on whether or not there has been intellectual effort on the part of the student. For example, a student who reads, takes notes, synthesizes their research, and successfully provides many citations and references, but forgets one citation, is learning. Compare this to a student who simply copies and pastes some information and submits it for marks, or who submits the same assignment twice in a program.
The Library and Learning Curve provide workshops on academic integrity, plagiarism, APA citing, and paraphrasing. These are available in-person or remotely at campuses across Manitoba.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was a groundbreaking book because it was the first modern science fiction story. It was written at a time when people were worried about scientists playing god and scared of what might happen in the future if science had a free reign without morals. It was also a horror story because it dealt with death and gory details of decaying flesh. The original story was written over one weekend while Mary Shelley was staying with Shelley and Byron and they were challenging each other to write the scariest story.
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) was a groundbreaking book because it was the first modern science fiction story (Ordover, 2007). It was written at a time when people were worried about scientists playing god and scared of what might happen in the future if science had a free reign without morals (Morton, 2002). It was also a horror story because it dealt with death and gory details of decaying flesh. The original story was written over one weekend while Mary Shelley was staying with Shelley and Byron and they were challenging each other to write the scariest story (Ordover, 2007).
Assiniboine's academic integrity team has developed a series of academic integrity checklists for different assessment scenarios. These guide students through the practice of academic integrity while they complete their work. We encourage you to include these with each of your assignments.
Using text-matching software such as Ouriginal can also help to prevent and detect plagiarism. If a student has a high similarity score to sources on the Internet, they may have:
Text-matching software doesn't detect plagiarism in that a similarity score doesn't indicate intent. Students may have high similarity scores to other students if they're:
Careful analysis by instructors is needed when using Ouriginal.
As mentioned before, knowing your students and their language abilities/style is the best way to identify plagiarism. If something suddenly sounds like it was written by a different person with a different vocabulary, it may have been.
An initiative which tracks and blocks websites offering contract cheating and plagiarism services revealed that many Assiniboine students use "paraphrasing tools" to plagiarize. Favourites include:
These websites allow a user to enter a block of text and have it be rewritten for them. This could range from a student having one sentence rewritten in order to avoid citing it, or entering entire pages or whole assignments to be rewritten. In both cases, watching for meaningless synonyms or awkward wording helps in identification.
The Academic Misconduct Procedures Manual which accompanies Policy A25 will point staff towards procedures and resources to help gather information for the identification of potential academic misconduct. Contact the Manager of Library Services for more information.
References
Assiniboine Community College. (2023). Policy A25. https://assiniboine.net/sites/default/files/documents/2019-08/a25.pdf
Baporikar, N. (2019). Preventing academic misconduct. In D.M. Velliaris (Ed.). Prevention and Detection of Academic Misconduct in Higher Education. IGI Global.
Bertram Gallant, T. (2008). Academic integrity in the 21st century: a teaching and learning imperative. Jossey-Bass.
Bertram Gallant, T. (2017). Academic integrity as a teaching & learning issue: from theory to practice. Theory Into Practice, 56(2), 88-94.
Bertram Gallant, T. (2018). Course design, assessment & integrity: strange bedfellows? https://academicintegrity.org/blog/course-design-assessment-integrity-strange-bedfellows/
Eaton, S.E. (2021). Plagiarism in higher education: tackling tough topics in academic integrity. Libraries Unlimited.
Mansoor, F., & Ameen, K. (2016). Promoting academic integrity in south Asian research culture: the case of Pakistani academic institutions. South Asian Studies, 31(2), 77-90.
Okoro, E. (2011). Academic integrity and student plagiarism: guided instructional strategies for business communication assignments. Business Communication Quarterly, 74(2), 173-178.
PlagiarismChecker. (2020). Plagiarism worksheet for college and university level students. http://www.plagiarismchecker.net/plagiarism-worksheet-for-college-and-university-level-students.php
Schick, K. (2011). Citation obsession? Get over it! https://www.chronicle.com/article/Citation-Obsession-Get-Over/129575
Stephens, M. (2014). Citation fixation. https://www.libraryjournal.com/?detailStory=citation-fixation-office-hours
Vardi, I. (2012). Developing students' referencing skills: a matter of plagiarism, punishment and morality or of learning to write critically? Higher Education Research & Development, 31(6), 921-930.
Velliaris, D.M., & Pierce, J.M. (2019). Cheaters beware: (re)designing assessment practices to reduce academic misconduct. In Prevention and Detection of Academic Misconduct in Higher Education, 1-38.
Whitley, B.E., & Keith-Spiegel, P. (2002). Academic dishonesty: an educator’s guide. Lawrence Erlbaum.