PLAGIARISM

DR. V. B. JUGALE
PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS
SHIVAJI UNIVERSITY, KOLHAPUR
 Introduction
• Plagiarism in academics very widespread
Publishers, teachers, examiners complain of
“Copying” in some form or the other
• Is plagiarism increasing?
Anecdotal evidence says yes. Due to the ease of
copying facilitated by the Net. Pressure to publish?
• What has been the response?
Institutions and faculty seem to simply look away
Publishers cannot afford to ignore plagiarism. But
limits to how much they can do
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 Outline
(Based largely on Background Paper for UGC Committee on Plagiarism)

• No quick fix, No permanent solution, No abolition

possible, Long-term process to contain plagiarism
• Focus on
 Exposure/Training
 Prevention,
 Detection and
 Response
• Containing plagiarism by stressing importance of
originality? By encouraging creativity? Rather
than by looking only at punishment

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 Presence Among Researchers
• Today’s students are tomorrow’s researchers
• EPW experience:
– More cases detected among faculty than
students,
– From central/state universities, ICSSR institutes,
and colleges
– Also among senior government officials, NGO
activists, etc
• Workshops: All Levels of Plagiarism/Review of
Literature common in faculty
• Responsibility of Departments/Professional Bodies?
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 When to Acknowledge
For students: One must give credit while:
• Directly quoting another person's actual words,
whether oral or written;
• Using another person's ideas, opinions, or theories;
• Paraphrasing the words, ideas, opinions, or theories
of others, whether oral or written;
• Borrowing facts, statistics, or illustrative material; or
• Offering materials assembled or collected by others
in the form of projects or collections without
acknowledgment.
Reproduced from Indiana University Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities,
and Conduct (2005) : www.indiana.edu/~iusasr/documents/code05.pdf,
page 13

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 Why Do Students Plagiarise?
• Insufficient Training/Exposure
– Undergraduates not exposed to importance of
creativity/originality
– Undergraduates/postgraduates not formally
taught referencing and citation rules
– Postgraduates rarely formally taught about
meaning and dangers of plagiarism and the
importance of not copying
– MPhil/PhD scholars are given no more than
“orientation” courses on plagiarism
– contd

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 Why Do Students Plagiarise?...contd
• Unintentional/”Compelled” Plagiarism
– Language difficulties among first generation
English learners (Review of Literature)
– Language in some fields of social sciences
impossible to comprehend (Cultural studies?
Therefore need for reflection?)
• Quality of Research Atmosphere
– If academic integrity/creativity is not stressed,
boost to plagiarism
– Inadequate teaching/research resources

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 Why Do Students Plagiarise?...concluded
• Deadline Pressure
– Reliance on term-papers, written assignments that
do not require thinking…pushing students to
plagiarise?
• Casual Attitude of Authorities
– All the above come together if there are no
institutional mechanisms to deal with plagiarism
– Culture of Indifference…

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 Types of Plagiarism
Illustrations from iThenticate, plagiarism detection
software,
Sources Not Cited
• “The Ghost Writer”
• “The Photocopy “
• “The Potluck Paper” (“patch writing”)
• “The Poor Disguise”
• The Self-Stealer
Source:
http://research.ithenticate.com/citation_help/types_of_plagiarism.html

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 Types of Plagiarism –II
Sources Are Cited But..
• “The Forgotten Footnote”/”The
Misinformer”
• “The Too-Perfect Paraphrase”
• “The Resourceful Citer”
• “The Perfect Crime”
….Purely illustrative
Source:
http://research.ithenticate.com/citation_help/types_of_plagiarism.html

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 Different “Levels” of Plagiarism
1: Copying evidence and arguments/ideas (Extreme
Form of plagiarism)
2: “Cut and Paste”: Copying text verbatim without
quotation marks and relevant citation (Blatant
plagiarism)
3: Paraphrasing
substantial and crucial sections from
one or more sources without relevant citation.
(Intelligent plagiarism-1)
4: Selective or Inadequate Citation (Intelligent Plagiarism-
2)
Adapted from List in iThenticate “Types of Plagiarism”
…contd

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 “Levels” of Plagiarism -2
5: Copying a few sentences/phrases verbatim
with acknowledgement but without quotation
marks. (Intelligent Plagiarism-3)
6: Incorrect Citation/Misleading Sources
(Intelligent Plagiarism-4)
7: Distinguish between “Review of Literature”
plagiarism vs “Core” plagiarism
Examples

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 Detection: Uses & Limits of Software
• Many types of detection software available
• Free (Viper, Copy Checker, Chimpsky, eTBlast)
• Paid: Turnitin (most well-known), iThenticate
• Google search serves EPW well enough
• Detection based on indexed material – limits
• EPW experiment with Turnitin
• Software power based on “copy-paste” plagiarism,
what about copying of arguments/ideas?
• Software designed to process assignments,
usefulness for theses?

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 In Conclusion
• Never going to eradicate plagiarism
• No immediate fixes, long-term and immediate
measures
• Senior-level plagiarism:?
• Students: First, institutional awareness – of
phenomenon, causes, differing types of plagiarism
• Second, courses and class assignments
• Third, institutional mechanisms, gradation of
responses
• Most important and most difficult: encourage
creativity…

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