Kenneth Acala

Cynthia Guillen
Valeska Zuniga
Arsen Stus
Grant Sedlak
Francis Echavez
Plagiarism: SFSU vs. Notre Dame

Introduction:

Plagiarism is an issue that occurs in academic writing, which shows dishonesty and the

lack of knowledge a student has about the subject being written on. In Susan D. Blum’s My

Word, she did a study at Notre Dame to see why students would want to plagiarize and the

motivations behind it. We wanted then to compare the student body of Notre Dame and San

Francisco State University exclusively to their demographic and self-identity. With information

like this, we narrowed the aspect of reasoning as to why a student would want to plagiarize in

college. The information we searched for the in the students was his or her ethnicity, gender,

religion, and reason(s) of attending college. We also asked if there was any pressure of attending

college—whether it would be parental pressure or the will to help out the family. Looking into

this type of information, it gives us—the researchers—concrete answers as to why a student

would want to plagiarize. Although students may have many reasons as to why they would

plagiarize, we wanted to find out if the motivation to plagiarize is correlated to their individual

self-identity and demographics. We wanted to find the reason behind this because we want to

know if students plagiarize due to parents pressuring their child to do well—as it is apparent in

Notre Dame—or if they can’t measure up to college work. So, we dove into the college body and

scattered throughout the campus to find what interesting data we could find in San Francisco

State.
Methods

For our research on the view of plagiarism in college culture at San Francisco State

University, we decided to make surveys and conduct interviews. As a class we collected

information from students on their views of plagiarism and then we were put into groups to

focus on certain aspects of college culture. The surveys we handed out were made up of a

two-sided sheet of paper containing 26 questions that our class found suitable for this project.

We received 44 surveys back and as groups we had to sift through the data to find information

pertaining demographics and its relativity to the stance on plagiarism. Aside from the surveys,

we also collected four individual interviews on the pressures of plagiarism at SFSU.

The survey was made as a class to gather research of plagiarism in college culture at

SFSU. It contained about 26 questions but there were only 7 questions within the survey that

was relevant to our section of interest. The questions we were concerned with asked the

individual about their identity attributes such as race, religion, gender, and social ranking in

which they affiliate with. But the answers to these questions can be more complicated than a

“check all that applies” survey.

To make up for the vagueness from the surveys, we conducted individual interviews to

include into our research. In the interviews we asked similar questions to what was on the

surveys, but instead of grouping the individual, we were able to ask questions and let him/her

expand on how the pressures of their identity influenced their views on plagiarism. Although

all the interviews were done on males, they were of different ethnicities and each had a

different view of plagiarism.

Our research was far from perfect and there are many flaws. An issue that may have

arisen from our research is the relatively small amount of data we used. Our goal was to
 compare the college culture of SFSU to that of Susan Blum’s research at Notre Dame. 44

surveys and four interviews cannot possibly encapsulate the entire SFSU student body’s view

of plagiarism. Another issue with our research method is the way we conducted our surveys

and interviews. Since we only chose friends to survey and interview, our results could be

biased.

Demographic Survey Findings

On the survey conducted by Sarah Fama’s English 114 class, 44 San Francisco State

students answered to seven different demographic questions. The first question was: “What is

you gender?”—We included transgender as in option in addition to the traditional male and

female choices due to large transgender community San Francisco has. In this pool of SF state

students, it was discovered that 36% of students are male and 64% are females.

The next question was regarding to the students’ ethnicities. The breakdown of the

students ethnicities in San Francisco state was discovered as the following: 11% identified

themselves as White, 14% as Black/African American, 32% Hispanic/Latino, 2.3% as Hawaiian,

25% as Asian, and 23% as Filipino—4 % of students declined to state. (See appendix B)

The next question was to find out what economic standing the majority of SF State

students pertained to. About less than 5% of SF state students reported to have a family income

of $40,000 or less, 20% of students had a family income of $40,000 to $80,000, 18% between

$80,000 and $120,00. Most students, 41%, did not know what their family income is (see

appendix A).

In SF state, according to the class surveys, about 1% of students are international

students, leaving the rest of the student body to be from the United States. We also asked if they

were first generation born in the United States; 41% answered yes and 55% answered no. We
then asked if they were first generation to be in a four year University; 55% of students in SF

state answered yes and 45% no.

We were also curious to see how religious SF state students are to compare to Notre

Dame—a Catholic university. We made a scale of 1 to 5 (1 not being religious 5 being very

religious.) 32% of students answered 1, 11% of students answered 2, 20% of students answered

3, 32% of students answered 4 and 11% of students answered 5.

Interview Findings

In our interviews we collected a lot of information and discovered many things about the

students at SFSU. This included their motivations to do well in school, the expectations people

have on them, and their views on plagiarism. Our group members conducted these interviews.

Four students were interviewed and to keep the interview results anonymous, we made up names

for the students interviewed. One student was a male Filipino catholic whom we named Alfonzo,

another was a male Indian catholic whom we named Andrew. Another student was a male

Salvadorian whom we named Pablo, and lastly was a White male whom we named Timmy.

All of the students we interviewed are motivated by their parents to do well in college.

Pablo said, “that’s the whole reason of coming to this country-for a better life and education is a

key element to obtain a better life”. Andrew shares that his parents didn’t have the opportunity to

go to college and therefore he was motivated to do better in school and succeed.

The students interviewed also feel that there are expectations that are put on them

because of their race. Andrew said, “I guess the stereotype for being Indian is being smart, very

smart. People assumed that I would be in all the highest math and science classes but I’m just

average. I don’t want to be some doctor or computer programmer, I want to be a physical

therapist.” Pablo brought up the point that “statistically Latinos are the biggest ethnicity group to
drop out so sometimes I feel people are surprised that I went straight to a four-year college. It’s

more common to start at a community college”. Finally Alfonzo believes the stereotype on his

race is “you’re Asian, you should be smart”. He states, “ I feel pressured to do well in school and

I have a lot of Asian friends who are smart. I think I’m highly gifted in certain areas but I don’t

think I’m smart for an Asian.”

Those interviewed define plagiarism, as turning in work that isn’t your own or you didn’t

do yourself. A couple of the students shared personal experiences of when they had plagiarized.

They had both plagiarized using Spark Notes. Alfonzo used Spark Notes on a book work

assignment for his English class in high school and got caught which led to him failing the

assignment. Pablo would also use Spark Notes in high school on essays that were about topics

that didn’t interest him. When asked if he felt bad about it Alfonzo answered, “No, I don’t feel

bad, it’s not a big deal. But if it were someone high up in society like a professor then

plagiarizing would be wrong. They should be able to think of their own work”.

Most students agreed that their religion does not influence their views on plagiarism.

Alfonzo said, “I’m catholic I have plagiarized but I didn’t feel bad about it. There’s not a

commandment that says you can’t plagiarize.” Pablo agrees saying, “I mean of course it is wrong

but it isn’t a sin. I mean I don’t feel good about it but it isn’t a real sin.”

Many of the students also said that San Francisco State University is very diverse and

sexual orientation has not affected their college experience. Alfonzo said, “It hasn’t really

affected me. I think it just affects people when they are gay but there is a lot of diversity at this

school. I’m used to diversity though because I grew up in California and it’s a diverse state. It’s

one of the most diverse places on the west coast.” Pablo said that in San Francisco his sexual
orientation has not affected his college experience and “I mean people are very open here.”

Timmy agrees that SFSU is very diverse.

Demographics Survey Discussion

Demographics have little to do with a student’s temptation to plagiarize. We surveyed a

diverse population of students and there were no patterns for certain races or religions to

plagiarize more than the other.

One of the questions asked if they ever plagiarized and in what ways. According to our

survey, on average, about 50% of all students in SFSU have plagiarized in some way. The most

common way people plagiarized in SFSU was by re-using a text for a different class, and failure

to cite. I can see why re-using a text would be the most common because people would never

consider re-using an essay as a form of plagiarism. Also, failure to cite is very common as well

because a lot of students lack the education on how to properly cite sources.

In Notre Dame University, 72% of the students are white (see appendix B). Compared to

SFSU, which is a very diverse school, the percentages for each race was mostly average. The

highest population of students of a certain race in SFSU is Latino/Hispanic, which is 32% (see

appendix B). It would be wrong to say that just because the students in Notre Dame were white,

they had a higher chance a plagiarizing. According to Sarah Blum, 60 percent of all college

students report that they have engaged in one form or another in plagiarism (Blum, 141). Notre

Dame University has about the same percentage for plagiarism, and their school is mostly white.
Race alone, does not influence students’ temptation to plagiarize; students plagiarize regardless

of their race.

According to the survey results, religion could be one of the only demographics that

affected a student’s temptation to plagiarize. On our survey we asked students at SFSU to rate

themselves on how religious they are on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being not religious, 5 being very

religious). The answers for this question were pretty average too. 32% of students answered 1,

which means they aren’t religious at all. This was the most common answer for the survey. So

for most students at SFSU, religion probably doesn’t get in the way of their studies. Notre Dame

is a catholic school, so a lot of the students are probably religious. According to Sarah Blum, at

Notre Dame some dorms have open Mass (Blum, 111). Since, more students at Notre Dame use

some of their time for religious activities, it gives them less time to focus on academics. This will

give them more temptation to plagiarize. One of the reasons people plagiarize is because they fill

up their schedule with too many activities and end up procrastinating on their assignments. These

students then use plagiarism as a shortcut to complete their assignments (Blum, 133).

We found that race does not play any role in a student’s temptation to plagiarize. The only

demographic that could affect plagiarism would be religion, because it could take up time for

students to focus on academics.

Interview Discussions

After reviewing all of the interviews, we discovered a few interesting patterns. For

Example, past generations were much less likely to graduate from a four-year university, or even

attend one. Religion seems to play much less of a roll now days than it did in the past because

people are doing what benefits themselves the most, regardless of the heritage. Growth is

apparent through these interviews. Society as a whole is progressing and learning more about
each other every day. San Francisco State University seems to be one of the most diverse schools

I have ever seen.

After reading and analyzing the interviews, every subject chosen was a different

ethnicity. There are different lifestyles among each one, however most of the motivation for all is

due to their parents. Our generation is determined to push society past its limits and experience

things never seen before. Financial aid is a common courtesy at SFSU and still it is not enough.

Many students work a full time job as well as being a student. Though it seems tough now, the

tough work we are slowly nudging through it teaching how to deal with life.

Although religion does not play a large role in stereotyping and expectations, ethnicity

does. The assumption of being smart because the interviewee is Indian is one of many among the

blind careless assumptions. Race should have no play in determining the qualities and aspects of

an individual, however sadly, it does. Almost every ethnicity has their stereotype, but you must

look past the ignorance of few, and accept people for who they really are. We believe the ethnic

and racial diversity at San Francisco State is helping the bond of society grow closer. I have

personally witnessed ignorant peoples minds begin to open up and accept diversity in the small

amount of time we have lived here.

Plagiarism has so many meanings and definitions it is very tough to determine what is or

is not plagiarism for someone who is not educated on the topic. The results from the interviews

show that almost everyone is guilty of plagiarism whether it was intentional or not. Race and

ethnicity make no difference in the opinions on plagiarism. Since plagiarism is not illegal some

think there’s no rules stopping it. While there are no laws against plagiarism, "Honor Codes

typically require students to affirm that they will practice virtuous conduct as members of the

University Community" (Blum, 150). Universities do this to prevent students from plagiarism. In
my mind there are two types of plagiarism and each should have its own punishment: intentional

and unintentional plagiarism. Someone who is knowingly plagiarism should be punished

however the student who simply doesn't know how to site his or her sources, should be educated

on how to do so rather than be

 Works Cited

1. Blum, S. D. (2009). My Word!: Plagiarism and College Culture. Ithaca: Cornell

University Press.

2. Notre Dame. (n.d.). CollegeInsight. Retrieved May 3, 2010, from http://college-

insight.org/#spotlight/go&h=a42a363921b76351e4491ffdea3a6eac