Ideas and Strategies for Curbing Plagiarism in E238

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Plagiarism and academic fraud is a growing problem in college classes. In a course like E238 where papers on most assigned texts are easily available online, it's important to create assignments and use classroom strategies that curb the temptation to plagiarize. A few common approaches include:

Conference with students early on in the drafting process and watch as the paper progresses
Require specific inclusions (for example, connections between two specific assigned articles, references to a specific class discussion, etc.)
Require oral presentation of a paper. Afterward, ask follow-up questions that will be able to gage the student’s mastery of ideas.
Require revision that asks for expansion/development of key ideas
Consider substituting or pairing traditional writing assignments with a related project (Powerpoint presentation, pamphlet, blog, etc.)
Spend class time discussing plagiarism with students. Be sure they know what plagiarism means, what types of work can be called “plagiarized,” and why/how to avoid plagiarism.
Make it clear to your students that you’re aware that online plagiarism resources exist. If a student feels that you are aware of the different sites and papers that are already out there, it might seem more difficult to “get away” with using academically dishonest resources.
Consider strategies for using online papers as a springboard for a student’s own analysis. (These papers could be cited and used in a summary/response assignment, for example.)

A few specific tips and approaches:

There are also quite a few excellent online resources that discuss the growing problem of plagiarism and academic fraud. A few interesting sites include: