Purpose: This study contributes to the current body of literature on students' understanding of academic misconduct, plagiarism, forms of plagiarism, the reasons they plagiarize, the sanctions imposed by academics for plagiarizing and the methods to address plagiarism in written assessments within the Faculty of Natural Sciences, University of…

When writing an assignment, most students start by searching for information online, which they integrate in their writing and conclude by producing a bibliography for the sources used. They use their informational, writing and referencing skills to do this as well as refer to their plagiarism knowledge to make sure their text is exempt from…

Detecting contract cheating in written submissions can be difficult beyond direct plagiarism detectable via technology. Successfully identifying potential cases of contract cheating in written work such as essays and reports is largely dependent on the experience of assessors and knowledge of student. It is further dependent on their familiarity…

Plagiarism is an unfortunate but often inevitable byproduct of human discourse. It may have begun with one enviable cave drawing being copied onto another cave wall--without attribution. Ironically, and probably just as inevitably, the modern classroom serves as a kind of breeding ground or incubator for this ancient, murky form of theft. A 2011…

Plagiarism is a prevalent form of academic dishonesty in the undergraduate instructional context. Although students engage in plagiarism with some frequency, instructors often do little to help students understand the significance of plagiarism or to create assignments that reduce its likelihood. This study reports survey, coding, and TurnItIn…

With the increased use of digital materials, undergraduate writers in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts have become more susceptible to plagiarism. In this study, the researchers designed a blended English writing course with an online writing tutorial system entitled "DWright." The study examined the effectiveness of the…

Plagiarism is a commonly cited problem in higher education, especially in scientific writing and assignments for science courses. Students may not intentionally plagiarize, but may instead be confused about what proper source attribution entails. Much of this confusion likely stems from high school, either from lack of or inconsistent instruction…

This qualitative research study examines how 12 undergraduate second-language learners understood the concept of citations in academic writing. The following questions guided this study: What are the participants' beliefs about citing research? How do students conceive the role and function of citations in their writing assignments? How do they…

For students new to higher education, the task of developing their academic writing skills, and particularly the principles and practices of source-referencing, can be daunting. Although institutions and teachers can and do provide positive guidance on this score, all too often students veer into inadvertent plagiarism through lack of confidence…

In this paper we report a case study of two first-year students at a university in Hong Kong doing the same writing assignment that required the use of sources. We explore the students' understanding of plagiarism, their strategies for composing, the similarity between their texts and source texts, and the lecturer's assessment of their work. The…

Plagiarism is an increasing problem in high schools and universities. To address the issue of how to teach students not to plagiarize, this study examined several pedagogical approaches for reducing plagiarism and the use of Turnitin, an online plagiarism detection software. The study found a significant difference between the control group and…

Using textual analysis and interviews with student writers, this study aims to provide an insight into second language students' use of direct quotations in their MA theses by comparing direct quotations in high-rated and low-rated Master's theses, and by exploring student writers' own motivations to quote directly from sources. The corpus…

This study evaluated how effective an online academic integrity module was at reducing the occurrence of plagiarism in a written assignment for a university course. In a preintervention comparison group, plagiarism was detected in 25.8% of papers submitted, compared with only 6.5% in the group that completed the academic integrity module. The…

Melissa A. Vosen outlines a unit she has designed to help students comprehend the often unclear boundaries and issues surrounding plagiarism. Using Bloom's taxonomy of the cognitive domain, students complete increasingly complex tasks, learning to construct a works cited page and assess scholarly opinions. They also research the consequences of…

Student plagiarism is a pervasive and increasing problem at all levels of study in tertiary institutions. This study attempted explicitly and implicitly to address issues of plagiarism within the broad context of an academic writing framework in tutorials in a first-year module at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. Despite these…