Bytes for beginners

NEA Today, Nov 1999

I have an Internet-age twist on the old "copying from the encyclopedia" problem. Some of my students are finding it irresistible to simply cut and paste chunks of text from a Web page into their written assignments. How can I stop this plagiarism?

Cut-and-paste plagiarism poses quite a challenge as tech-savvy students tap the power of the Internet to complete their writing assignments.

Your first step to curtailing plagiarism is to understand why students do it, and then to make your policy on plagiarism understood.

Despite warnings to students about consequences, plagiarism can still occur. And distinguishing between students who unintentionally misrepresent their work and the minority who make a conscious decision to do so is equally frustrating.

Help your students understand what constitutes plagiarism. You might be surprised to learn that many students believe that-since the Internet is open to everyone anything they find is fair game to use as they want.

Perhaps the most effective way to combat plagiarism is to assign papers and essays that call on students to relay personal experiences or draw from classroom discussions.

If you do need to validate a student's work, identify unusual keywords or unique phrases within the paper and search for them in one of the large search engines such as Hotbot (www.hotbot.com) or Lycos (www.lycos.corn).

Also, consider browsing these "term paper mill" Web sites:

School Sucks-www. schoolsucks.com

* Al Termpaper-www. al -termpaper.com

Research Papers Online A www.ezwrite. com

Free Term Papers International-www. freepapers.com

Dorian's Paper Archive -www.fas.harvard.edu/ -dberger/papers

Evil House of Cheatwww.CheatHouse.com

Have comments or questions about technology? Go to www.nea.org/cet, or E-mail your questions to webeditor@dear.nea.org.