Plagiarism and Cheating: Who's to Blame?

In the last 24 hours, two colleagues have brought to my attention cases of academic plagiarism at the professorial level, and another brought to my attention an article from The Chronicle written under a pseudonym by a man who makes a living from writing students' undergraduate and graduate research papers for them.  A number of questions arise from these examples of acdemic cheating and many of them raise difficult ethical questions to which I'm sure I don't have the answers.  The discussions I've had over the last day include questions like:

1. What do you do if you find out that someone else has plagiarised your work in a published article/essay?  Who do you contact?  The journal?  The authors?  What are the appropriate remedies, if any?  Any how much of this is a matter of opinion ie who makes the final judgment as to whether the allegation of plagiarism is sustainable or should be sanctioned in some way?

2. Who is to blame for what appears to be a creeping growth in instances of plagiarism at all levels of the academy?  Is it a result of time pressure?  Economic pressure?  Unreasonable expectations of academics and students?  Admitting people into programs who cannot cope with the demands of the program?

3. Should there be sanctions for professional "ghost writers" who write work for those unwilling or unable to do their own work?  On what grounds?  Presumably a student who employs a ghost writer will be penalized by his/her institution if the cheating is discovered, but what about the people and businesses who enable the cheating by providing the required services for money?

I would certainly recommend the article in the Chronicle as both an engaging and disturbing story which may be instructive for anyone involved in supervising graduate or undergraduate papers.  I would also be interested in other people's stories about how they have detected and dealt with academic plagiarism and cheating on assignments.

Comments

[Bill Turnier]

The purpose of my comment is to relate a funny story. A number of years ago I did a research project that involved me in interviewing a number of Tax Court judges. I asked them among other things the degree to which citation in a case was indicative of reliance on scholarship. Rhenato Beghe told me that he felt obliged to cite helpful articles while others did not. When he first joined the court he was harshly criticized by Ted Tannenwald, then a fellow judge, for doing so. When Judge Beghe told him that he felt morally obligated to do so, Ted said to him: "What is the matter with you Beghe? Did you ever hear of a federal judge getting impeached for plagiarism." when you can see your work product in an opinion without citation, you may want to keep this in mind.

[Rachid]

As an English Language Professor, I have to deal with plagiarism pretty much on a regular basis. No matter what I tell my students on the dangers and consequences of plagiarism, some of them still submit essays with some instances of plagiarism. I wrote an article on plagiarism a while back and he are my thoughts on why students plagiarize:

1- Lack of academic research and library skills
2- Lack of linguistic competence to correctly paraphrase and cite sources: this particularly prevalent among non-native speakers.
3- The student has not been instructed on how to properly cite and reference outside sources
4- Student’s lack of confidence about his/her writing skills
5- Time pressure when dealing with deadlines and finals.
6- Cultural differences: borrowing others’ words and ideas without acknowledgment is an acceptable practice in many societies.
7- Lack of interest in the course itself.

Here's the link to the full article: http://blog.academicplagiarism.com/?page_id=21

Rachid
http://academicplagiarism.com

[Jonathan H. Adler]

Jacqui --

In answer to the questions you pose, I think it depends on how clear and egregious an example it is, and the likelihood it was "innocent" error. In relatively clear cases I think one possibility is for the Dean or Associate Dean of one's school to contact the journal and the relevant Associate Dean at the alleged offender's school suggesting that they investigate it. I also think it's appropriate for the plagiarized author to send a note to the alleged offender seeking an explanation.

I have had several instances in which I found work by others that closely tracked something I had written and cited some of the same material, but without citation to me -- and without lifting phrasings or passages. In those cases I did nothing more than send a note to the offending authors noting that I liked the piece, sometimes with my article as an attachment. In one instance I knew full well the author had seen and read my stuff -- they had complimented me on it before writing their own -- but there wasn't really more to do.

JHA

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Admitting people into programs who cannot cope with the demands of the program?