Academic writing: Citation is troublesome

and plagiarism is no big deal

Associate Professor Dr Su-Hie Ting

Universiti Malaysia Sarawak
suhieting@yahoo.com.au




Paper presented at ICSSR, 4-5 June 2013, Penang

Plagiarism

The theft of words or ideas, beyond
what would normally be regarded as
general knowledge (Park, 2003, p. 472).

Low social value on individual work (Zobel &
Hamilton, 2002).
Language difficulties, e.g. theses (LoCastro &
Masuko, 1997; Park, 2003).
Everyone does it (Scanlon & Neumann, 2002).
Purpose of study

The study examined the seriousness of plagiarism
based on students self-reports of strategies used to
complete written assignments in university.

(1) identify the plagiarism behaviours used by students
to complete their written assignments;
(2) determine students attitudes towards penalties for
plagiarism; and
(3) determine reasons for the occurrence of plagiarism.

Method

Questionnaires given to 169 students enrolled in an Academic
Reading and Writing course at a Malaysian university in Wk 2 of
semester to find out existing knowledge and practices before
instruction.

- Questionnaire was adapted from Ryan, Bonnano, Krass ,
Scouller, and Smith (2009).

- Part 1: familiarity with citations and requirements to include
citations in assignments
- Part 2: attitudes towards plagiarism
- Part 3 choice of penalties for plagiarism
- Part 4 strategies to complete assignments
Results 1 Extent of plagiarism behaviours

(1= Never; 2=Sometimes; 3=Often; 4=Usually; 5= Always)


1A - Group work practices Mean SD
1. Discussing an individual assignment
with friends*
4.46 1.13
1. Not contributing your share to a group
assignment
3.82 0.92
1. I share articles with a friend who is
working on the same assignment
topic.*
3.35 1.06
1B - Academic writing practices Mean
1. Borrowing from different sources and connecting them to make a paragraph 3.61
2. Quoting a paragraph exactly with quotation marks (but not citation) 3.51
3. Including someone elses words in your assignment without citing 3.29
4. I quote an important sentence by copying the exact words with quotation marks (
), cite the source and include in the reference list.*
3.23
5. I write a paragraph by taking a few words from a few articles and put them
together. I add my own words to make the meaning clear and include the source in
the reference list.
3.08
6. I use some sentences from an article and put them in a different order from the
original. I cite the source and include in the reference list.
3.05
7. Translating from another language without citing the source 2.94
8. I use information from an article, with a lot of changes in language and
organisation. I also make changes in the amount of detail, cite the source and
include in the reference list.*
2.89
9. I do a key-word web search and cut and paste information in my assignment. 2.51
10. I copy a sentence from an article into my assignment. I do not cite the source but
include it in the reference list.
2.45
11. Downloading material from the web and including it in your assignment without a
reference
2.41
12. Inventing references because you have forgotten to copy down the reference
details
2.30
1C - Help-seeking behaviour Mean
1. Copying another students work with their knowledge 3.26
2. I get ideas from a friend who did the same assignment in
earlier semesters.
3.20
3. Submitting an assignment that has already been given
marks
3.09
4. Getting somebody else to write your assignment/part of
your assignment
3.01
5. Copying another students work without their knowledge 2.72
6. Getting somebody to fix up your assignment to make it
better
2.50
7. I show my assignment to a lecturer for guidance.* 2.48
(1= Never; 2=Sometimes; 3=Often; 4=Usually; 5= Always)
Results 1 Extent of plagiarism behaviours

The most common - mosaic plagiarism, defined as:

borrowing the ideas and opinions from an original source and a
few verbatim words or phrases without crediting the original
author. In this case, the plagiarist intertwines his or her own
ideas and opinions with those of the original author, creating a
confused, plagiarized mass. (American Medical Association
Manual of Style, cited in Iverson et al., 1998, p. 104)

If direct quotations are used without the quotation marks with
attribution, the source of the language to explain the ideas has
not been acknowledged (Wilhoit, 1994, p. 161), and this is still
plagiarism.
Results 2 Attitudes towards
seriousness of plagiarism
Penalties for plagiarism %
1. Student receives a warning from the lecturer
89.94
2. Student is asked to resubmit the assignment
88.17
3. Student receives counseling
81.07
4. The incident is reported to the faculty
59.17
5. The incident is reported to the university
40.83
6. Student gets an F (fail) for the assignment
37.87
7. Student gets an F (fail) for the course
24.26
8. No action taken
13.61
9. Student is expelled from the university
11.83
Results 2 Attitudes towards
seriousness of plagiarism

No big deal
Dont realise plagiarism constitutes
theft of intellectual property.
Results 3 Reasons for plagiarism


3A - Reasons for not including citations %
1. I dont know how to cite 65.68
2. My lecturers didnt ask me to cite 38.46
3. My lecturers dont minus marks if we dont cite 20.71
4. My friends also didnt cite 17.16
5. I want lecturers to think that the ideas are mine 12.43
Results 3 Reasons for plagiarism



3B - Extent of correctness of citations %
1. Mostly correct 17.75
2. Half correct, half wrong 49.11
3. Mostly wrong 8.88
4. Do not know if I got it correctly or wrongly 24.26
Total 100.00
Conclusion

All the students have been involved in
some form of plagiarism when
completing their written assignments
and a substantial proportion do not
realise the severity of plagiarism as an
act of academic dishonesty.


Conclusion
.
Permissive attitudes towards plagiarism seem to
stem from:
Sharing resources in group work is OK with peers
consent.
Lack of knowledge on citation conventions
mosaic plagiarism and omission of quotation marks
and sources.
Lack of lecturer emphasis on citations.

Need for institutional policy and practices to
deal with attribution of intellectual property and
academic integrity.