When I was in the 5th grade, I remember being given an assignment to research a notable person in history. Having a particular interest in notable women in history, I decided to cover the founder of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. I went to the library with my father and checked out a book on Nightingale to use for my report. Our teacher told us not to copy, word for word, from any source, so I was sure to copy only a few words and get creative with synonyms. A few years later in the 7th grade, I was given a similar assignment and turned in the same Florence Nightingale research paper.
If I'd submitted the same essay today using a service like Turnitin, I would have gotten in trouble for my first and second submissions. I attended a great middle school, but the times, being what they were, made it difficult for teachers to investigate instances of possible plagiarism. Interestingly, some have perceived the addition of technology to the educational mix as the cause for an increase in plagiarism, as discussed in this Huff Post article from 2011.
As I reflected upon my own plagiarism as a middle school student, I have to question whether or not plagiarism has truly increased or if it has gone undetected for a long time. While technology and access to information certainly makes plagiarism easier, one could argue that if a student has the desire to cheat, he or she will go about it in any way they can. Also, while it may be easier to cheat, it is also easier for teachers to detect cheating.
I've worked in schools that didn't have programs like Turnitin, but was still able to pinpoint cheating by typing in a few lines of a student's essay into Google. In one instance, I discovered plagiarism when the lines I typed into Google returned lines from the physical book from which the student copied. When I spoke to him about it, he admitted he thought he was "safe" because he copied from a "real" book and not a website!
What is your opinion on the current prevalence of plagiarism in K-12 and higher education? Have things gotten better or worse?
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