McKenzie says the New Plagiarism may be worse than the old because
students now
wield what he calls an "electronic shovel", making it possible to
find - and save - huge chunks of information with little reading,
effort or originality. "While the pre-modem student might misappropriate
a dozen ideas from a handful of thinkers, the post-modem student
can download and save hundreds of pages per hour," writes McKenzie,
"We have moved from the horse-and-buggy days of plagiarism to the
Space Age without stopping for the horseless carriage."
"Essay cheating is so sophisticated now that not only can you
have your work tailor-made, but I've heard that you can specify
a certain level of work [to avoid suspicion]," says English Professor
Allen Koretsky. "That is, if you want to hand in a 'B' essay -
which might be your usual mark - you can ask for that."
It's not only slackers who cheat. Top students do too. Koretsky
had a "good, bright" student, a high-achiever, who suffered enormous
stress and resorted to copying, he says. "Even when confronted
with proof, she denied having plagiarized the material."
Ron Sheese, professor of psychology, says it is almost impossible
to build a profile of a cheater. It's not easy either to say why
students plagiarize. "Some people think of it as a moral sin,
where the boundaries between right and wrong are clear. They think
all cheaters are out to screw the system. But I don't agree. Cheating
is on a continuum from students who use passages from someone's
work without thinking to mention the source, to those who buy
papers from writing services. And what do we call it when parents
help with essays? Is the student cheating?" asks Sheese.
"You can have very good students who plagiarize because they
feel pressure from family and peers. They have a reputation to
maintain and don't want to do modestly well. They want to get
into grad schools with As and A+s. There are demands from society
for people to appear knowledgeable. It's happening in our own
jobs, it's happening with our kids. It's felt strongly that you've
got to be almost perfect. And this is not unique to universities;
it's true throughout our society."
Many university professors are concerned enough about the threat
of plagiarism and the Web that they've set up their own special
sites which offer advice on how to tailor teaching methods that
make buying ready-made essays more difficult. For instance, there's
software that can compare suspect essays to a database of known
work available on the Internet (see sidebar).
Perhaps the best advice for faculty is to be computer-literate,
says Professor Peggy Keall and Rob Finlayson, who are affiliated
with teachtec, a University resource centre that helps faculty
who want to use technology in their teaching and research. "I
figure I'm a better Internet searcher than the students are,"
says Keall. "It's easier to do an electronic search [to check
up on a purchased term paper] than to find proof that someone
has plagiarized from a book."
Says Finlayson: "Students are often in a hurry to pick up information
and will usually use the first two or three sites they hit. If
we suspect that someone is cheating this way, we just take a phrase
that seems out-of-place and search for it on the Web."
Instructors
have many tricks to deal with plagiarism on the Web. But the best
may be creativity when setting up assignments. Essay topics can
be set to compel students to use work taught in the classroom.
Another useful tactic is to hand in essay outlines and sometimes
even work-in-progress.
"The Web is forcing some instructors to go back to using tests
and final exams instead of essay assignments for grading," says
Ron Owston, professor at York's Centre for the Study of Computers
in Education. "In some cases, though, instructors are trying not
to fight the Internet. They are accepting that it's here and should
be used. What they're saying to students is, 'If you use the Internet
as a resource, remember to cite the source.' "
Not all essays are stolen from books and the Internet though.
Social science professor Jerry Durlak had the amusing experience
of receiving a paper that seemed all-too-familiar. "All of a sudden
I remembered that a friend of mine from graduate school, now a
prof at Carleton, had given me a speech he had delivered the month
before. When I compared the document with the student's paper,
it was exactly the same."
Although it is difficult to prosecute students for cheating
without solid evidence, proof of their plagiarism doesn't have
to be beyond a reasonable doubt, as would be required under criminal
law. "The burden of proof is that the evidence must be 'clear
and compelling'," says Shirley Katz, in-house University lawyer.
Faculty members usually go easy on first-time offenders who
admit to plagiarism. Second-time offenders aren't so lucky. A
formal complaint is lodged with the respective dean. The ultimate
punishment for repeat offenders, judged guilty after hearings
by the Senate Appeals Committee, is suspension.
York considers plagiarism "reprehensible", and has explicit,
written policies and procedures prohibiting essay-writing services
from advertising on campus - as they recently did. Students are
urged to take their assignments to University resources like Atkinson's
essay tutoring service, York's Centre for Academic Writing or
the Computer Assisted Writing Centre.
"Leaving posters up for essay services is like giving a message
to students that it's OK to cheat," says Sheila Embleton, associate
dean of Arts. "The average plagiarizer is not a hardened criminal.
Sometimes he or she is just too tempted, so why should we keep
temptation there? It's like leaving keys in a car."
