How to Write an Academic Research Paper

The Council of Writing Program Administrators offers this definition of plagiarism:

In an instructional setting, plagiarism occurs when a writer deliberately uses someone else’s language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledg­ing its source.

Plagiarism is nothing new, and instructors all over the world can very likely come up with dozens of examples they have seen in their classes. With the advent of the Internet, plagiarism has become a lot easier to commit. Faculty need to be aware of what plagiarism is, how it happens, and how to recognize it, but they also need to know how to prevent it and how to show their students that plagiarism is not worth it and that it is easy to avoid.

Causes of Plagiarism/Academic Dishonesty

Anderman & Murdock (2007) list 10 causes of student academic dishonesty, in descending order of frequency:

Being unprepared

Poor or failing grade

Trouble learning the material;  material too difficult

Not being watched

High stakes exams

Others cheat

Students collude to cheat

Trivial or boring work

Not the student's major

Keep financial aid

[Source: Anderman, E.M., & Murdock, T.B. (Eds.).  (2007). Psychology of academic cheating. Boston, MA: Elsevier.]

Types of Plagiarism

Intentional plagiarism involves knowingly committing fraud: buying essays (or downloading them for free), using friends' essays, reusing one's own old materials, asking friends to write essays, copying verbatim from one or more sources, using synonyms but maintaining sentence structure, etc., are all evidence of intent to deceive. Many students may not think this is important or even unethical, or they may think that they are justified to plagiarize, due to pressure, lack of time, etc.

Unintentional plagiarism involves a lack of understanding of what plagiarism is and how to prevent it. Students may be unskilled at paraphrasing, or they may not know how to use sources to back up arguments.  Students should be made aware that in many institutions, unintentional plagiarism still counts as academic dishonesty and can lead to penalties.

Policy and Procedures Manual,  V. D. 2. Student Conduct Codes

1. Plagiarism
   1. Submitting another’s published or unpublished work in whole, in part or in paraphrase, as one’s own without fully and properly crediting the author with footnotes, quotation marks, citations, or bibliographical reference.
   2. Submitting as one’s own original work, material obtained from an
      individual or agency without reference to the person or agency as the
      source of the material.
   3. Submitting as one’s own original work material that has been produced
      through unacknowledged collaboration with others without release in
      writing from collaborators.