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This page provides advice and assistance on academic dishonesty issues.  For instructors in the USF Department of English, I am available, as Plagiarism Consultant, to provide advice regarding plagiarism in your classroom.

Contact Information:  

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Office: CPR 321

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Phone: 974-9506

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Email: pinsky@chuma.cas.usf.edu

If you believe plagiarism has taken place in your classroom, or you wish to prevent plagiarism before it occurs, you will find the information provided on this page (as well as the "tutorial" page described below) helpful.  My experience has demonstrated that, by taking a few simple steps before and during your time in the classroom, you can reduce students' inclination to cheat.  While such a list of steps will not be able to specifically address every classroom situation, this overview may prove helpful to instructors who have been (thus far) spared having to face student plagiarism in their courses.  

As the Plagiarism Consultant for the USF English Department, I am available to discuss specific plans which might suit your classroom (be sure to contact me enough in advance).   I also heartily recommend discussing with your peers what techniques they have specifically used to curb academic dishonesty.  Together, we can work to discourage plagiarism and support a productive learning environment.

Steps to Help Curb Academic Problems

  1. Have a clearly stated plagiarism policy in place.  Put this in your syllabus.  Do you give a zero for the paper?  Do you fail the student for the semester?  Will you resort to the dreaded double-F?  Make sure you (and your students) are familiar with the University's Academic Dishonesty policy.
  2. If you teach basic writing courses (Freshman English, Professional or Technical Writing, etc.), do at least one (preferably two) clear lessons on plagiarism and how to adequately quote and paraphrase source material.  You must be clear to your students the reasons why plagiarism is wrong.  I have adapted several handouts you may distribute to your students (more are available through the links below and through links found on the Student Resources page).  You may use or modify them at your discretion:
    bulletPlagiarism and Paraphrase
    bulletIncorporating Sources
    bulletExercises on collaboration, cheating, and plagiarism for classroom discussion
    bulletHere is the reasoning that I provide the students in my upper-level literature courses.  Feel free to adapt it for your classroom needs.
  3. Design assignments that minimize the students' temptation to plagiarize.  There are many ways to do this, and you should suit your tactics to your general class strategy.  Consider using literature with less secondary criticism than more popularly taught texts.   Design essay and research assignments so that students are obligated to address specific class themes.  If you use research-based assignments, be sure your students follow explicit steps that require disclosure of their sources.  Focus on process-oriented writing, and make students responsible for submitting writing during each stage.
  4. Familiarize yourself with the research material and secondary criticism available, especially internet resources.
  5. The burden of proof is on the teacher, as it should be.  Keep a paper trail.  Make sure you have all roll sheets from your class.  If you suspect academic dishonesty, document the evidence.  If you schedule a private conference with the student, keep a written record (record time and subject matter), allow the student to countersign, and provide the student with a copy for his/her own records.  
  6. Because of privacy concerns, you are obligated to keep the matter initially between you and the student (do not single the student out in class), but you may bring in a supervisor (usually the director or chair of your area) to consult when you have clear evidence.  Instructors in the USF English Department are encouraged to contact me for any advice you might need in handling plagiarism cases.

Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty Issues

bullet USF Undergraduate Catalog: Academic Dishonesty Policy
bullet Student Plagiarism in an Online World
bullet Combating Cybercheating: Resources for Teachers: Excellent collection of links offering history, strategies for preventing plagiarism, detection techniques, and more resources than I could ever list here.
bullet Student Cheating and Plagiarism in the Internet Era: A Wake-Up Call, by Ann Lathrop and Kathleen Foss, is an extremely practical guide to fostering academic honesty (and catching and punishing cheaters) in every discipline, at every age level, with exercises, handouts, and advice.  Indispensable and highly recommended, this is the best book on the subject I have seen.
bulletThomas Mallon's Stolen Words is fairly well-known, but its approach is more historical and anecdotal than practical.  If you are interested in famous cases of plagiarism to frighten wayward students, this is the place to go.

Teaching Students About Plagiarism

bullet Plagiarism Do's and Don'ts (UC Davis)
bullet How to Avoid Plagiarism (Indiana University)
bullet Plagiary and the Art of Skillful Citation (Baylor College of Medicine)
bullet Anti-Plagiarism Strategies (Robert Harris)
bullet Avoiding Plagiarism (Purdue University)
bullet University of Virginia Plagiarism Resource Center
bullet About Plagiarism, Pixels, and Platitudes (Dale Boehm)

Resources for Tracking Student Sources

bulletCopernic Agent: An excellent front-end search program which scans multiple search engines (like Yahoo and Lycos) for a variety of uses. The basic system is free and comes highly recommended.
bulletPlagiarized.com: On-line training on how to spot plagiarized papers.
bulletDr. Pinsky's Plagiarism Tutorial: This special list of student resources and hints on detecting plagiarism, designed for instructors, is available by permission only.  If you are a faculty member, please email me (and provide some means of confirmation, if I do not know you).