No cheating!

[Kevin Robert Dean]

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

Plagiarism-detection software stems students' use of
'paper mills’

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Plagiarism isn’t just a problem for
publishers and best-selling historians. It’s also a
pain for professors, whose students can buy essays
over the Internet, rather than write them. 
However, a new study – the first of its kind – reveals
how professors can best deter their students from
using online “paper mills” and from plagiarizing. 

In their study of college students, Brian Gaines, a
professor of political science at the University of
Illinois, and Bear Braumoeller, a professor of
government at Harvard University, found that even
stern warnings not to plagiarize seem “to have no
discernable deterrent effect.” 

But, revealing to the students that their papers would
be run through plagiarism-detection software proved to
be a remarkably strong deterrent, or, put another way,
“seemed to concentrate minds wonderfully,” Gaines and
Braumoeller wrote in a recent issue of PS: Political
Science and Politics. 

While the professors concede that existing
plagiarism-detection software is not perfect, “its
success rate is high enough to merit use in a wide
range of classroom situations.” 

The professors focused on two groups of students and
the papers they were assigned to write. One group was
given a written and a strong verbal warning about
plagiarism for the first paper; the other was not. The
assignment was intentionally broad. “Our purpose was
not to encourage plagiarism, but rather to remove
impediments to it in order to assess student behavior
when topical constraints are few.” 

On the second assignment, all students were told their
papers would be checked by plagiarism-detection
software. After the students deposited their papers
electronically, the professors used EVE (Essay
Verification Engine), a program to test for
plagiarism. Other findings and observations: 

Ironically, paper mills may in the long run make
plagiarism more difficult, the professors said. 
For one thing, paper mills have “created a niche for
plagiarism-detection software.” Also, what is
available online is “of middling quality at best;
students may reach the same conclusion.” And, with the
spread of printed matter now being scanned and put
online, plagiarism-detection programs are increasingly
capable of catching passages taken from printed
sources. 


Only about one out of eight papers turned up
“problematic” because of either casual or blatant
plagiarism. “While we cannot with confidence establish
an upper bound on percentage of papers demonstrating
plagiarism, one-eighth serves as a fairly solid lower
bound.” 
While a few students engage in intentional academic
dishonesty, “far more were unclear on the rules about
plagiarism, but paradoxically, had received enough
lectures on it that they simply ‘tuned out’ any
warnings.” 
“The challenge for the educator is to deter the first
group and to motivate the second to pay closer
attention. Plagiarism-detection software seems to
serve both functions quite well.” 


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Kevin Dean
Buffalo, NY
ICQ: 8616001
AIM: KDean75206
Buffalo Activist Network
http://www.buffaloactivist.net
http://www.yaysoft.com

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