We have been using turnitin.com more and more in our classes at Southern Illinois University. The database is extensive and contains all papers submitted to it before, in addition to journal articles, etc... The instructor can set up an account for the class, and students can submit their papers through the account. The student can use it to measure the amount of plagiarism (i.e., some red flags will pop up if common phrases are used) and make corrections before making the final submission.
I also talk about plagiarism at the beginning of my classes and explain why it violates the student code of conduct and is unethical. The turnitin.com provides a method for them to assess and correct their own work, which can be a positive and powerful training tool. Hopefully, it won't be abused by students who want to check whether they can get away with plagiarizing a seemingly obscure article or book chapter. Loretta Battaglia, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Southern Illinois University Carbondale Department of Plant Biology and Center for Ecology Mailcode 6509 Carbondale, Illinois 62901-6509 TEL: +1 618 453 3216 FAX: +1 618 453 3441 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] webpage: http://www.science.siu.edu/plant-biology/Faculty/battaglia/index.html -----Original Message----- From: Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of David Inouye Sent: Tuesday, October 03, 2006 7:15 PM To: ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU Subject: 7 more messages on the plagiarism topic On the same matter, I wonder what we do to teach and train our students how not to get into plagiarism. Roberto -- Larry T. Spencer, Professor Emeritus of Biology Plymouth State University ************************************************************************ I note that the original inquiry was not about student work, but a manuscript submitted to a journal. Most of the responses have concerned plagiarism in student work. Both are important themes, but I'd be interested in more thoughts on the original question; what's the proper response to plagiarism in manuscripts or grant proposals? (I was, for quite a few years, on ESA's Professional Ethics Committee, and this issue periodically came under discussion. I've been on editorial boards for quite a while, and there's been little explicit discussion there...) Kerry Kerry D. Woods Natural Sciences Bennington College Bennington VT 05201 [EMAIL PROTECTED] faculty.bennington.edu/~kwoods ************************************************************************ I think that plagiarism is one of the lowest things that you can do, and I think my opinion on that would be the same as everybody else on this list. However, I do take exception to the following rule from the institution at which Russell Burke is employed: "Here at Hofstra students are expelled automatically upon conviction of their second case of plagiarism. Conviction can occur even in the absence of proof of plagiarism" Huh? If I was a student at this particular institution that was CONVICTED OF PLAGIARISM WITHOUT PROOF OF ME HAVING PLAGIARIZED then my first question would be "Who do I sue to get my reputation back?" Maybe that is part of the reason that nobody really tries to do much about this sort of thing. - Juha Metsaranta [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ If they are so desperate to be recognized, then by all means publish their names. I would suggest the ESA have a comittee to review offenses and publish the names of cheaters and their coauthors at the annual business meeting. Senior faculty authors will be much more careful in the pre-review process if they may be also humiliated along with errant students. Cheating for coursework is deplorable, submitting plagarism for peer review can not be condoned. Sincerely, Jim Sparks On 10/3/06, Jesien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >If that is the student's fourth documented occurrence of plagiarism, you >can >rest assured that there was a whole lot more that was undocumented. I ...snip... ************************************************************************ Received: from md2.mail.umd.edu (IDENT:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [128.8.31.175]) by listserv.umd.edu (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id k93NcDss020451 for <ecolog-l@listserv.umd.edu>; Tue, 3 Oct 2006 19:38:13 -0400 (EDT) Received: from David600m.umd.edu (144b-309.umd.edu [129.2.39.53]) by md2.mail.umd.edu (MOS 3.7.5a-GA) with ESMTP id BQF77917 (AUTH inouye); Tue, 3 Oct 2006 19:38:13 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 7.0.1.0 Date: Tue, 03 Oct 2006 19:38:04 -0400 To: ecolog-l@listserv.umd.edu From: David Inouye <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: 6 more responses on plagiarism thread Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed X-Junkmail-Whitelist: YES (by domain whitelist at md2.mail.umd.edu) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by listserv.umd.edu id k93NcDss020452 On the same matter, I wonder what we do to teach and train our students how not to get into plagiarism. Roberto -- Larry T. Spencer, Professor Emeritus of Biology Plymouth State University ************************************************************************ I note that the original inquiry was not about student work, but a manuscript submitted to a journal. Most of the responses have concerned plagiarism in student work. Both are important themes, but I'd be interested in more thoughts on the original question; what's the proper response to plagiarism in manuscripts or grant proposals? (I was, for quite a few years, on ESA's Professional Ethics Committee, and this issue periodically came under discussion. I've been on editorial boards for quite a while, and there's been little explicit discussion there...) Kerry Kerry D. Woods Natural Sciences Bennington College Bennington VT 05201 [EMAIL PROTECTED] faculty.bennington.edu/~kwoods ************************************************************************ I think that plagiarism is one of the lowest things that you can do, and I think my opinion on that would be the same as everybody else on this list. However, I do take exception to the following rule from the institution at which Russell Burke is employed: "Here at Hofstra students are expelled automatically upon conviction of their second case of plagiarism. Conviction can occur even in the absence of proof of plagiarism" Huh? If I was a student at this particular institution that was CONVICTED OF PLAGIARISM WITHOUT PROOF OF ME HAVING PLAGIARIZED then my first question would be "Who do I sue to get my reputation back?" Maybe that is part of the reason that nobody really tries to do much about this sort of thing. - Juha Metsaranta [EMAIL PROTECTED] ************************************************************************ If they are so desperate to be recognized, then by all means publish their names. I would suggest the ESA have a comittee to review offenses and publish the names of cheaters and their coauthors at the annual business meeting. Senior faculty authors will be much more careful in the pre-review process if they may be also humiliated along with errant students. Cheating for coursework is deplorable, submitting plagarism for peer review can not be condoned. Sincerely, Jim Sparks On 10/3/06, Jesien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >If that is the student's fourth documented occurrence of plagiarism, you >can >rest assured that there was a whole lot more that was undocumented. I ...snip... ************************************************************************ At a well-known and expensive university operated by a major religion where my wife once taught, she had an experience that discouraged her from pursuing any further enforcement of the schools strict honor code, which all students must sign, that specifically prohibits plagiarism. One day she came home in a state of euphoria, urging me to read the brilliant paper one of her students had just "written." Upon reading the paper (which was otherwise brilliant) I noticed a grammatical or compositional error. Just for the heck of it, I searched the Internet, and up it popped, written by a professor in a university in another country. Only the author's name and institution were changed. I urged her to prosecute the matter. She spent a lot of time and anguish, first talking with the student, who wasn't much impressed, then with the department head, who took it to the dean, who took the matter under advisement. Nothing more was heard of the matter. While I am certainly not qualified to judge, and while it has been my good fortune to encounter many good products of the university system, I'm afraid that my overall opinion of the bulk of graduates cranked out over the last couple of decades have learned the art of obfuscation, digression, and evasion much better than those of prior decades, particularly in the so-called "soft" sciences. I submit that the soft sciences do deserve legitimacy in their own right, but have been systematically reduced to a kind of reductionism that provides more bragging rights for their programming skills, for example, than substance with respect to advancing the essential questions of their fields. And, given the strangle-hold that Political Correctness has on academia and the rest of society, critical review itself has been reduced to a political club to be wielded over peers in the Great Academic Rat Race for a small number of jobs, or, more likely, grants, rather than an efficient means of truly advancing understanding. WT PS: There is a "defect" in the preceding (at least one). At 11:13 AM 10/3/2006, Jesien wrote: >If that is the student's fourth documented occurrence of plagiarism, you can >rest assured that there was a whole lot more that was undocumented. I have ...snip...
