Avoiding Plagiarism in an Online Graduate Environment

Disclaimer

By C.B. Crawford, Ph.D.
Assistant Provost for Quality Management
Fort Hays State University
600 Park Street
Hays, KS 67601
(785) 628-5950

Presented at the Association of Graduate Liberal Studies Programs Conference,

October 2002, Chicago, IL.

Online Ed. John A. Ross

Types of Plagiarism

Plagiarism involves different unethical writing behaviors: ghostwriting, patchwriting, lack of appropriate citation, lack of appropriate quotation, and contextual fraud.

Ghostwriting

Ghostwriting is a very common form of plagiarism. When text is ghostwritten, someone other than the person taking credit for the work authored it. This kind of plagiarism has sharply escalated in recent years due to the opportunities created by the Internet. Today, anyone can cut and paste text into any paper in seconds. Complete papers can be downloaded. Plagiarism before word processors saved about 50% of the effort of writing the paper. Today, the benefit is much higher, given the effortlessness in "producing" a paper.

Ghostwritten text is not acceptable in higher education. In some fields, such as politics and business, it is a commonly accepted practice. The relation between the text and the writer is subservient to the relationship between the text and the presenter. "Work for hire" is the norm.

Ghostwriting is just one more way that corporate public relations departments can advertise their company, just one more way that politicians can get in front of their constituency. Students understand this as an inconsistency, and it becomes a likely justification for plagiaristic efforts. But that thinking is simply wrong, given the preparatory ends that education serves.

Patchwriting
When a body of text is patchwritten, parts of the text are taken (nearly verbatim or altered very slightly) from another source without attribution of that source.

How to handle patchwriting ethically is unclear and awkward for most educators. The real problem is to decide what is too close to the actual original text to be considered original student creation. There are "few new thoughts under the sun", but papers that follow another publication with the same thoughts, in the same order, using the same words, are too close to be considered original scholarship.

Patchwriting is a common when specific concepts need to be inserted in a text without the user having much knowledge about the given concept. Patchwriting is usually interspersed with other original text, but it is still plagiarism. It is typical to see a paragraph of original work introducing or concluding the concept, then patchwritten text that actually addresses the issue. Sometimes the patchwritten text could be as minimal as inserting one particular sentence and passing it off as original text. Various reasons for patchwriting exist, but perhaps most frequent is the lack of familiarity with the topic. Laziness is the purview of ghostwritten text.

Inappropriate citation and reference
Ghostwriting and patchwriting are obvious acts of academic treachery, but inappropriate citation of work is less overt and, perhaps, more accidental than plagiaristic. Every author gets a citation wrong from time to time - that is a given part of writing.

Inappropriate citation is NOT about transposing the volume number, or failing to remember the middle initial of the second author. Occasional errors in reference are common mistakes. Although they create an inaccurate text, the intent is not to defraud; rather it's mere oversight.

Plagiarism from inappropriate citation arises when a reference is overused (perhaps the reference may have been the only one actually used in the student's research) and other authors' names were added to the reference list to make the paper look much better than it is. This activity is as common and as deceptive as ghostwriting and patchwriting, even though not a single word may have been "stolen" from the original text.

Inappropriate quotation
As students become more proficient at writing academic papers, the incidence of inappropriate use of quotation tends to decrease. There are three possibilities for inappropriate use of quotation:

First, the writer may fail to quote a verbatim remark from the text of another author, but may cite that author correctly. Technically, this is plagiarism and could be treated in the same manner as any other violation of academic integrity. However, in many cases this type of behavior is more a result of inexperience with a writing style. Obviously, if students that should know better commit this sort of behavior in very strategic ways (like the deliberate omission of quotation marks on a text from an author that has been overused in the paper already) then the work is clearly being plagiarized.

The second possibility arises with over-reliance on quoted materials in a paper. This issue is more centered on composition guidelines, but if the paper is simply one quotation after another, one might justifiably suspect a lack of effort. If the paper is nothing but another person's ideas, that is poor writing, but if the quotations are cited in an appropriate manner, then it does not really constitute plagiarism.

Finally, some people might just make up a quotation in an effort to lengthen the paper or to provide greater support for their position. This type of fraudulent behavior constitutes a serious infraction of academic standards. Making up facts is as unethical as stealing another author's words without giving them credit.

Contextual fraud
The final manner in which plagiarism occurs is the deliberate changing of words quoted from another author with the intent of changing the meaning of the passage. Simply put, if a quotation from an author is used, then the quotation should be nearly verbatim. When people insert words that the original author had not intended with the purpose of changing the intent of the passage, then a serious fraud has occurred. Any time that a quotation is used, it should be verbatim. A change in verb tense could change the context of the original author's statement. The intent of the original author must guide how the quotable material is used in the paper. When a quotation is substantially altered, on purpose, this must certainly constitute a misrepresentation of the author

Other Links to this Document:

Title Page

Introduction

Defining Academic Plagiarism

Detecting Plagiarism

Prevention and Management of Plagiarism

Other Strategies

References