Plagiarism
Many instructors face situations in which they believe students have plagiarized written material. While all students may be susceptible to this practice, some ESL students may be more apt to borrow inappropriately from sources than their native-English-speaking peers. Many international students come from countries and cultures in which textual borrowing without attribution is not only permitted but encouraged as a mark of good writing.
Undergraduate students who entered the U from high school should have taken WRTG 2010 or ESL 1060, both of which are first-year writing courses that address how to integrate sources appropriately. However, it may have been several years since those students completed these courses. In addition, transfer students may have taken equivalent-credit courses that did not stress research-based writing. And graduate students--especially international students--may come from educational systems or institutions that included few opportunities to practice US-based academic writing.
With such cultural differences in mind, instructors should strongly consider investing time in preventing plagiarism before it's necessary to impose sanctions. Here are three specific suggestions:
1. Assess your students' experience with using academic sources early in the course. Consider assigning students a survey--either on paper or online--that asks them to report on their past writing experiences. Also consider pre-testing their understanding of appropriate textual borrowing in your field by requiring them to do short writing activities in which they paraphrase and/or quote from sources you give them. (You may also use or build on general quizzes.)
2. Include explicit teaching about source use into your course just before you assign major writing tasks. While instructors should certainly refer to plagiarism in course syllabi (specifically, the U's Policy on Student Academic Misconduct as well as appropriate department/program policies and procedures), it's important to remember that students may not retain their syllabus copies or refer back to them regularly.
Be prepared to address the following questions:
What kinds of material constitute "common knowledge" in your field that may not require citation?
Which in-text citation and documentation style do you want students to use?
How many and what kinds of sources (peer-reviewed journals? trade publications? online reports/websites?) do you require?
What proportion of the writing assignment should include paraphrases/quotations? (Literature reviews, for example, may include a lot of cited information.)
To what extent will you (or your teaching assistants) be available to read drafts?
What are your course policies--as well as departmental and university policies--about plagiarism in the event suspicions arise?
3. Design assignments that provide specific information and encourage responsible completion in the time allotted. Insufficient time is a frequently cited reason for plagiarism. Sometimes, a time crunch can combine with some students' hesitation about asking for assignment details (because of discomfort with spoken English). Consider setting intermediate deadlines for research and draft work, even if you do not require students to submit early drafts.
Of course, the best course and assignment designs cannot always eliminate plagiarism, and even students who are very aware of US scholarly standards may still use sources inappropriately. In cases of suspected plagiarism, it is vitally important to continue to communicate with the student(s) under question in order to ensure that their rights to due process are upheld and that they continue to have learning opportunities in your course.
Please note: it is also important to follow university policy in this area!
Feel free to modify and use the following email/memo examples to communicate with students in instances of suspected plagiarism. (Adapted from the TA Handbook produced by the Department of Linguistics.):