plagiarism in education

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Why Students Plagiarize

One teacher addresses plagiarism by examining the underlying causes such as a lack of confidence or time management skills.

It’s happening again. I feel the sentence structure at a subdermal level and know I’m confronting plagiarism before my eyes reach the period. A quick Google search reveals that my ninth-grade student did not write this sentence: “The memories stirred by the song cause Odysseus to weep, and, though he tries to hide it, the king notices and distracts the crowd by suggesting they begin an athletic competition.”

No single word in the passage is beyond my student’s reach, but I know what his writing sounds like—and this is not it. My search leads me to a site called Course Hero where “his” words appear. I email the student with a link to the site and ask him to come in to discuss. He responds politely, but he is adamant that he has never been on the site. “You can check my computer history,” he says. I schedule a meeting with him.

In 20 years of teaching, I’ve found ways to decrease plagiarism, but I have yet to eliminate it. Plagiarism frustrates me not only because it is cheating but also because it makes me feel as though my teaching has fallen short.

The Council of Writing Program Administrators identifies causes of plagiarism , including students’ fear of taking risks in their writing, having poor time management skills, and viewing the assignment and standards for documentation as unimportant.

Addressing plagiarism requires building students’ confidence in their writing, developing skills to navigate school stress, fostering investment in the assignment, and creating understanding of plagiarism and attribution. As a teacher, I have agency to address these issues. My response to plagiarism addresses four forces that lead a student to plagiarize.

Satisfaction With One’s Own Words

Students are sometimes maddened by the lumpy, inelegant sound of their writing. They read the words of someone with years of experience that sound so much more fluid. They might experiment with switching out a few synonyms or just paste the passage into their document. “That’s what I was going to say anyway,” a student once said in defense of a copied passage.

I tell my students that they have to write like a ninth grader before they can write like a tenth grader. The trick is to keep writing, in their own voice and with their own words. There are no shortcuts.

If I praise my students and use gentle methods to nudge them along, I hope they will trust themselves as writers. If my response sows doubt, they may lose faith in their own voices and look for someone else’s words.

The Value of the Assignment

The task of stringing one’s thoughts together can be daunting—especially if students aren’t invested in their thoughts initially. The Council of Writing Program Administrators argues that  when presented with “generic or unparticularized” assignments, “students may believe they are justified in looking for canned responses.”

In the earlier example, the student hadn’t plagiarized the “thinking” part of the writing; he’d plagiarized the “generic” summary portion.

I want to introduce students to Homer’s epics, and I want them to understand the value of summary when writing about literature. I want them to analyze patterns and themes in their reading. Was this assignment the best way to teach these skills? Upon reflection, offering a mini-lesson on summary would have turned the rote part of this assignment into an opportunity for refining a valuable skill. Recognizing my unintended complicity is important in decreasing students’ motivation for cheating.

In their book Beyond Literary Analysis , Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O’Dell assert that students’ analyses are more vibrant and authentic when the students are driven by the passion and authority that come from writing about their own areas of expertise.

Revealing Roadblocks

The student who plagiarized had missed class and submitted the paper late. I explained that the passage he had used could be found in various places and that I was not concerned with where he found it, but rather why he used it instead of his own words.

In discussing the why, we focused on the roadblocks the student perceived. I gave him a mini-lesson on summarizing, and he practiced it right on the spot. We discussed attribution, and brainstormed attributive tags. We talked about ways to address the pressure of facing past-due assignments, and when he suggested “ask for help” I cheered his answer. He offered to rewrite the summary.

Understanding Plagiarism

There are times students may not understand how writers use others’ ideas and words. Understanding attribution and citation is an important skill for avoiding plagiarism. A colleague asked students to draw a map for the setting in To Kill a Mockingbird . A student painstakingly redrew one she found on Google, not understanding that she was to devise the map from textual evidence in the book.

Particularly in this age of rapid-fire reposting and image sharing, our students’ perception of copying might not match ours. In “ Of Flattery and Thievery: Reconsidering Plagiarism in a Time of Virtual Information ,” education professor P.L. Thomas writes that helping students understand plagiarism requires outlining a framework for defining terms, developing guidelines, and establishing consequences.

No two plagiarism episodes are alike, but all offer learning opportunities for both the student and the teacher. In the Odysseus example, I decided to give the student half credit for his paper. I explained that aside from the plagiarized first paragraph, his analysis exhibited solid thinking and expression. In short, I valued his work. I reminded him of repercussions of future plagiarism, which in our school involves disciplinary action. This was one of the final papers of the semester, but I will check in with him next fall, revisit the struggles he mentioned, and remind him that I am his ally on his road to becoming a competent writer.

• Original article
• Open access
• Published: 01 May 2020

Reducing plagiarism through academic misconduct education

• Mike Perkins   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4479-4565 1 ,
• Ulas Basar Gezgin 2 &
• Jasper Roe 1  

International Journal for Educational Integrity volume  16 , Article number:  3 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Although there is much discussion exploring the potential causes of plagiarism, there is limited research available which provides evidence as to the academic interventions which may help reduce this. This paper discusses a bespoke English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme introduced at the university level, aimed at improving the academic writing standards of students, reducing plagiarism, and detecting cases of contract cheating. Results from 12 semesters of academic misconduct data ( n  = 12,937) demonstrate a 37.01% reduction in instances of detected plagiarism following the intervention, but due to limited data, cannot demonstrate a direct impact on reducing detected rates of contract cheating. The results also show a lower than expected proportion of plagiarised assignments (3.46%) among submissions.

Introduction

Academic dishonesty is not a new problem for higher education service providers. However, the rising availability of information sources which can easily be accessed by student writers, as well as essay-writing services heavily marketed towards university students, has led to an increase in discussions on this topic in both the media and academic journals. One way in which universities have attempted to monitor and control academic integrity is through the use of text matching software such as Turnitin. However, Turnitin and other software packages used to detect similarities between text submissions have been widely acknowledged as far from a perfect solution to ‘solve’ plagiarism (Heckler et al. 2012 ; McKeever 2006 ; Scheg 2012 ) as they do not inherently detect whether plagiarism has occurred.

Aside from cases of plagiarism that can be detected using text matching software, other, more subtle and difficult to detect forms of plagiarism such as contract cheating also need to be addressed. Throughout this paper, we use the term ‘contract cheating’ to refer to any form of plagiarism where a student has contracted another individual or organisation to carry out assessed work on their behalf.

Although student use of contract cheating services are not new (Lancaster and Culwin 2007 ) and prevalence of this behaviour is low (Rundle et al. 2019 ), they are becoming more visible, to the point where it is not uncommon to see these services advertised on social media. These services show evidence of being mature, well-established commercial operations, suggesting that there is a substantial demand feeding this supply (Ellis et al. 2018 ).

In this study, we present and discuss an intervention designed to improve the academic writing skills of students, reduce levels of plagiarism, and provide a tool to assist in the detection of contract cheating, by capturing a ‘fingerprint’ of a writing sample in an offshore international higher education service provider: British University Vietnam (BUV). BUV has operated in Vietnam’s capital city, Hanoi, since 2009. Although the faculty are entirely expatriate employees, almost all the students are Vietnamese, and therefore use English as their second or even third language. BUV faces the same problems as any other university with regards to plagiarism threats. However, due to the suggested negative relationship in the literature between English language ability and the propensity to commit plagiarism (Abasi and Graves 2008 ; Bretag 2007 ; Chen and Ku 2007 ; Goh 2015 ; Jones 2011 ; Li 2015 ; Marshall & Garry 2006 ; Perkins et al. 2018 ; Pennycook 1996 ; and Walker and White 2014 ), BUV must be more aware of the potential threats of plagiarism in its student body. In this paper we focus specifically on how the use of a bespoke English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programme (referred to internally as the Academic English Masterclass) may improve the academic writing skills of students, assist in reducing overall plagiarism levels within BUV, and specifically, assist in the identification of cases of contract cheating. As proposed by Kakkonen and Mozgovoy et al. ( 2010 ), we demonstrate how a final exam for this programme may be used to help identify potential cases of contract cheating by providing ‘fingerprints’ of a writing style which may be checked for consistency against a piece of work submitted later.

Literature review

Although there are multiple definitions and characterisations of plagiarism (see: Park 2004 ; Bennett et al. 2011 ; Mozgovoy et al. 2010 ), for the purpose of this paper, we refer to plagiarism as an act of submitting a document that belongs partially or completely to somebody else without due reference, and therefore misrepresents the effort that has been carried out by the submitting author. It is important to recognise that plagiarism can also occur unintentionally. We believe that the primary benefit of the initiative we present is that it has the potential to reduce instances of unintentional plagiarism by developing the academic skills of students, whilst also serving as a disincentive to the minority of students who seek to benefit by engaging in one or more deliberate forms of plagiarism discussed above. However, as the analysis presented in this paper uses institutional data on detected cases of plagiarism, we cannot differentiate between deliberate and accidental cases of plagiarism.

The reasons students engage in plagiarism has been well explored in numerous other papers, but as most students at BUV are Non-Native English Speakers (NNES), we wish to highlight the effect that low levels of English may have on incidences of plagiarism. This finding is supported by Bretag et al. ( 2018 ) who found that a factor influencing contract cheating prevalence was the use of a language other than English in students’ homes. Studies which have found a generally negative relationship between English language ability and plagiarism include Abasi and Graves ( 2008 ), Bretag ( 2007 ), Bretag et al. ( 2018 ), Chen and Ku ( 2007 ), Goh ( 2015 ), Jones ( 2011 ), Li ( 2015 ), Marshall and Garry ( 2006 ), Pennycook ( 1996 ), Perkins et al. ( 2018 ), and Walker and White ( 2014 ). However, many studies exploring this relationship are based on self-reported data from both students (Goh 2015 ; Jones 2011 ) and faculty (Abasi and Graves 2008 ; Bretag 2007 ; Li 2015 ; Walker and White 2014 ) which raise methodological concerns about the potential validity of this relationship.

In terms of interventions which may assist in combatting plagiarism, several options have been suggested in the relevant literature. These include an online academic integrity module (Belter and du Pré 2009 ; Curtis et al. 2013 ), a web-based module with a blended method on plagiarism (Stetter 2013 ), an online quiz through Blackboard (O'Donnell 2011 ), a plagiarism assignment (Davis 2011 ), an ethics-related module (Guo 2011 ), computer simulations and games as a preventative measure (Bradley 2015 ), marker training and the use of novel detection software, (Dawson et al. 2019 ; Dawson et al. 2019 ) and student plagiarism workshops (Chen and Van Ullen 2011 ; Hoanca 2019 ). Soto et al. ( 2004 ), and Levine and Pazdernik ( 2018 ) provide clear evidence of a reduction in plagiarism following a combination of initiatives, including structured educational modules, implementation of policies, increasing the difficulty of plagiarism by requiring students to submit drafts, and ensuring there are consequences of plagiarism. The fear of consequences arising from being caught committing plagiarism was also shown to be a strong deterrent to plagiarism by Bennett ( 2005 ). Amigud and Lancaster ( 2019 ) also identify that in some cases, familial involvement occurs in the process of purchasing contract cheating services, although it is not specified how this takes place. The authors suggest that ultimately, reducing contract cheating should focus on detection rather than attempting to stop it happening in the first place.

Proposals which have been suggested to specifically reduce contract cheating include: collecting writing samples from students (McLafferty and Foust 2004 ; Jones & Sheridan, 2014 ); setting assignments that specifically refer to lecture contents rather than generic essays (McLafferty and Foust 2004 ); improving the teaching and learning environment, including the relationship between staff and students and reducing the turnaround time of assessments (Wallace and Newton 2014 ); ‘designing out’ plagiarism (Fazel and Kowkabi 2014 ) by providing alternative forms of assessment such as exams, oral presentation (Lines 2016 ), internship experience and field trip-based reports, as part of a holistic assessment methodology (Goh 2015 ); and incorporating assessments that involve critical thinking and personal involvement with the course content (Carroll 2007 ; Heckler et al. 2012 ; McLafferty and Foust 2004 ; Probett 2011 ).

There is limited research in the field providing evidence of how contract cheating may be detected in the first place. Clarke and Lancaster ( 2007 ) present a ‘Six-Stage Contract Cheating Detection Process’ for identifying incidences of contract cheating in computer science assignments. However, this method relies on the availability of public information; in this case, ‘bids’ to an auction site. This ignores a common pathway of students obtaining papers from ‘essay mills’ or from advertisements on private social media groups. Morris ( 2018 ) on the other hand, suggests a more holistic model of five considerations for addressing contract cheating, including determining strategy, reviewing institutional policy, developing an understanding of students, edited and revisiting practices for assessment and including areas for staff professional development.

Koppel and Winter ( 2014 ) demonstrate how computational linguistic methods can be used to determine whether the author of two documents is the same. Although the results of their study indicate that this method has a good degree of accuracy in determining whether two documents were written by one author, it relies on having access to digital copies of all text being examined. This method is therefore unable to determine whether contract cheating has taken place, as it is not possible to analyse work from authors who are not in the existing database.

Clare et al. ( 2017 ) present a method of determining whether contract cheating may have occurred by examining whether unusual patterns exist between the grades received by students for unsupervised work compared to those for supervised work. This approach may be helpful to identify where further investigation could take place, but given the wide range of factors which could also influence differences in grades between different types of assessment (student preferences, differences in grading practices between markers, quantitative vs qualitative assessments, etc.), it cannot be relied upon by itself as a tool to identify contract cheating.

Dawson and Sutherland-Smith ( 2018 ) show that experienced markers were able to detect contract cheating 62% of the time in one experiment. However, these papers were all obtained from dedicated contract cheating websites which may be of varying quality, and the study only examined twenty papers from one course.

Harper et al. ( 2020 ) demonstrate that staff are generally skilled at detecting contract cheating rates for text-rich assessments, but this reported detection rate was lower for exam-based assessments as opposed to take-home assignments.

Although it is very easy for software solutions to identify text that is already present in its database, the ability of current software is not yet advanced enough to detect the complexities of contract cheating (Kakkonen and Mozgovoy 2010 ; Mozgovoy et al. 2010 ). As advances in technologies such as deep learning, neural networks, and quantum computing develop and become available for use in higher education, these difficulties may be eased. It is worth noting that new products from Turnitin such as Authorship Investigate have shown potential in identifying contract cheating cases (Dawson et al. 2019 ) although are not yet widely available. As software cannot adequately assist with detecting incidences of contract cheating, this is therefore left to faculty. However, studies such as Lines ( 2016 ) and Malesky et al. ( 2016 ) have shown how these contract cheating services can both be undetected by faculty (despite knowledge of their use) whilst also providing acceptable grades for the students engaging in these practices.

As there have been few reports of studies which have been specifically designed to both reduce plagiarism and identify potential cases of contract cheating, we contribute to the literature by detailing the methods which BUV have taken in order to resolve this problem, whilst at the same time increasing the academic writing capabilities of our students.

Language, plagiarism and context in British University Vietnam (BUV)

BUV is a private educational institution which began operations in 2009. BUV holds a unique position in Vietnam’s higher education system, as the only university to offer entirely British undergraduate programmes which are accredited by and offered in partnership with two UK universities. As of February 2020, BUV has approximately 700 students primarily studying degrees in Business and Management subjects.

The majority of BUV students are NNES and study a programme comprising two semesters of study per academic year. All students who begin a course of study must have achieved an English language proficiency score: either an official IELTS Band score of 6.0 with no sub-skill below 5.5, or an alternative English language qualification equivalent to this level.

BUV is in the process of undertaking rapid expansion and has recently relocated to a suburban campus with a capacity for over 7000 students. This dramatic increase in scale has the potential to give rise to new and increased risks for academic quality and reputation, and so it is imperative that appropriate measures are employed to safeguard the quality and rigour of the programmes offered during this period of growth and in the future. Consequently, the faculty of BUV has been working towards the development of an intervention to detect, reduce, and deter students from voluntarily or involuntarily participating in behaviours which would constitute plagiarism, whilst at the same time improving the key language and study skills required by students studying in an international educational setting.

Prior to the introduction of the BUV intervention in April 2016, faculty had identified that many students in their classes may benefit from additional support in developing their academic study skills. BUV had, by chance, also discovered some challenging cases of contract cheating and were also anecdotally aware that this was more common in the student body than previously thought. Due to the historical reliance in the institution on Turnitin as the key tool to identify instances of plagiarism, a new approach to managing the academic integrity of the university needed to be taken which could further improve the English language ability of students.

As any potential threats to the academic integrity of the BUV programmes need to be taken extremely seriously, and the potential benefits to the English language ability of students were clear, the introduction of an initiative to tackle both issues was required. The highly competitive market of private, international higher education in Vietnam also means that any additional benefits provided to students may act as market differentiators. By developing an initiative which could tackle both issues at BUV, and therefore increase the likelihood of students attaining good degrees, this would likely act as a potential selling point to the fee payers and decision makers (most often the parents of students). In this market, as in many others, a strong reputation is a key decision-making factor in the choice of universities. If there was a suggestion that the academic integrity of BUV was anything other than impeccable, this could cause significant problems with student recruitment, as well as damage our relationships with local and international stakeholders.

This intervention had to address several key concerns. Firstly, students had to be provided with additional academic English classes in order to attempt to reduce feelings of low confidence and improve their overall ability to write in English. Secondly, students also had to receive additional support in terms of time management and fostering motivation. An intervention had to provide a tangible, stringent method of detecting instances of contract cheating. Finally, the intervention had to specify the rules and codes of conduct relating to academic integrity expected in an international university environment, while being careful not to fall into the trap of assuming that Western academic values are a universal constant.

The intervention: Academic English Masterclass

Based upon the analysis presented above, BUV approved the creation of a standalone compulsory module for all undergraduate students, entitled Academic English Masterclass (AEM) which ran for the first time in April 2016.

The module consists of 2 hrs of class-based tuition per week for 12 weeks for all undergraduate students and culminates in a novel final exam, which functions as both a control and benchmark for students’ English writing ability as well as enabling fingerprinting of submitted work to be carried out.

The process of syllabus development was based on a needs analysis, as suggested by Nunan ( 1988 ), of a convenience sample of 30 students, targeting their ‘necessities, lacks, and wants’ (Nation and Macalister 2010 , p.25) and adapted for the East Asian context based on the research of Cai ( 2013 ). This was combined with informal one-to-one interviews with all 30 members of the sample group, and an initial diagnostic test in the form of a written essay. The needs analysis revealed that in terms of composition skills, students required the most assistance with essay planning, paraphrasing, referencing, and finding relevant sources of information. Many final year students admitted to plagiarising when they were unable to put ideas into their own words or were unable to identify the boundaries of utilising others’ material versus academic misconduct. This suggests that although first year students may require more focussed training on academic misconduct policy and basic EAP training, the requirements for final year students may be different. This insight was incorporated into the design of the course.

A final consideration in the design of the programme was the international context of BUV. Academic integrity is far from a universal concept and ignores the Eastern academic tradition of duplicating material as homage (Stowers and Hummel 2011 ). This is an important consideration in terms of understanding students’ interpretation of plagiarism, and it is possible that the view of reusing material in ‘homage’ is not seen by all students in this cultural context as a breach of academic integrity. However, research on this area is conflicted, and some authors suggest that plagiarism is more frequently linked to individual preference rather than cultural acceptability (Martin 2011 ). Regardless of this potential cultural paradigm clash, it remains important in this context that the AEM programme explicitly teaches and explains the underlying philosophical foundations of the British academic system, and the conventions that must be followed to avoid committing plagiarism.

The needs analysis led to the development of a multidimensional syllabus with the course goal of raising the awareness of acceptable practices surrounding plagiarism and academic misconduct, whilst at the same time, developing students’ researching and writing skills. This is tested by a final written assessment under exam conditions. Students are provided with a set of multiple-choice questions to assess knowledge about acceptable academic practices, and are also set a writing task. In this task they are given extended extracts from a variety of sources, including academic and non-academic sources of information with differing degrees of bias, and must tackle an essay question in which they utilise these sources. This procedure ensures that the essay written by the student (and subsequently used as a fingerprint) is entirely their own work, Footnote 1 and also provides them with the opportunity to demonstrate their ability in every facet of academic writing, including not only grammatical and lexical accuracy, but also the skills of paragraphing, paraphrasing, referencing, and critical thinking (as text extracts must be analysed for their impartiality). Alongside the original exam script is a companion piece, written by the marker, that contains several key points related to the writer’s ability, along with a band score of 1–9, which is developed based on a rubric and band score system of English proficiency. The rubric and band system scores students on grammatical accuracy, coherence, academic skills (referencing, paragraphing, and synthesis of material), and vocabulary. The marked sample is available for checking by faculty by the time students submit their summative assignments for their academic modules.

Markers must carry out a check using the writing sample on all high scoring assessments (papers scoring 70% and above), as well as a random selection of 10% of papers from each set of assessments, with a minimum sample size of six papers. Although all grading is carried out anonymously, once a paper has been graded, markers are permitted to use the student number to match up with the student name to aid in initial authorship investigation. All markers are trained how to perform these checks, and this process is discussed later in the paper.

Following the introduction of this intervention, all students were reminded of the dangers of plagiarism and new warnings were introduced to all assignment guidelines highlighting the severity of consequences if students were caught plagiarising. All students were made aware that their writing samples obtained during the AEM exam would be made available online for faculty and misconduct panels to check if there were any suspicions regarding their writing. New writing samples are obtained every semester from students, approximately 3 weeks before the assignment submission period begins in order to reduce the likelihood of significant changes being seen in the writing styles of students over time.

Methods and analysis of results

Data collection and screening.

If any student submission is flagged by a marker as a potential plagiarism or contract cheating case, a process is initiated by the faculty members which ends in the student being notified by the administration that that they are required to attend an informal meeting to discuss their work. Most cases of plagiarism are resolved at this stage and any penalties recorded. If, after this stage, there are concerns regarding potential contract cheating students are requested to attend an academic misconduct panel and participate in a viva voce of their submission in the presence of both a subject matter expert and a misconduct expert. Following the viva, if this panel has remaining suspicions of contract cheating, then the case is escalated to the most serious university panel for a meeting with the student. This panel will make the final decision as to whether contract cheating has occurred and will use a wide variety of sources of evidence in making its final decision. These include the writing samples obtained during the AEM exam, statements from relevant faculty, the previous marks obtained by the student, results from the initial viva and additional questions which the panel may put to the student. As the typical penalty for a student found to have utilised any contract cheating services is a failure of their award, it is the responsibility of the university to establish proof beyond reasonable doubt in these cases, and no decision is made solely on the basis of the comparison of the fingerprint with the submitted piece of work. The procedures used by BUV are set by the awarding body, and there is an appeal process available to the student.

In February 2020, we conducted an analysis of the plagiarism and contract cheating cases recorded during this process from the semesters of April 2014 through October 2019 to answer three questions:

What is the overall prevalence of plagiarism committed by students at BUV?

Has the AEM initiative been successful in reducing plagiarism cases?

Has the AEM initiative been successful in reducing detected incidences of contract cheating?

Before carrying out the analysis, the data was screened in the following way: Firstly, all recorded cases where a misconduct panel determined that no form of plagiarism had occurred in the flagged submission, and therefore gave a verdict of ‘no case to answer’, were removed. Any incidences where a verdict of ‘poor academic practice’ was given by the panel solely due to poor referencing practices were also excluded from the results. If one student had been punished for several plagiarism violations, each incident was counted separately.

The results of this analysis are shown in Table  1 .

Overall prevalence of plagiarism and contract cheating

From a total of 12,937 student submissions, analysis of the data revealed 448 plagiarism offences over the twelve-semesters between April 2014 and October 2019. The percentage of submissions found to have contained some element of plagiarism (excluding contract cheating cases) ranged between 2.35% and 7.08% each semester, with a mean percentage of 3.46% across the period of study. As the dataset covers multiple years, some incidences of plagiarism were from individual students who had committed plagiarism offences over multiple semesters.

With the caveat that it is possible that the study may underestimate plagiarism in the student body (as it would be unwise to believe that any higher education institution detects 100% of plagiarism cases), the first point to note is that the prevalence of detected plagiarised submissions is much lower than described in previous studies examining plagiarism data (as opposed to self-report studies). These studies have revealed mean rates of plagiarism of 26% ( n  = 182 ) (Barret & Malcolm 2006 ), 26.2% ( n  = 290 ) (Walker 2010 ), and 10.8% ( n  = 74) (Warn 2007 ) respectively. Within a specifically Vietnamese context, Ba et al. ( 2016 ) found that 73% ( n  = 681) of the submissions tested in their study had Turnitin similarity indexes of over 20%, and Tran et al. ( 2017 ) found that in their studies of two Vietnamese universities, there were plagiarism levels (defined by similarity indexes over 24%) of 91.7% and 61.7%. Footnote 2 Our study differs from those cited above due to the longitudinal aspects of the data collection period, meaning that a much larger sample has been obtained for analysis.

The results may indicate that BUV students demonstrate a lower predilection towards plagiarism than the norm, however, they are more likely explained by the large sample utilised in the study. Even though faculty (Andrews et al. 2007 ) and students (Scanlon and Neumann 2002 ) alike may consider plagiarism to be a significant problem in their institutions, our results demonstrate that a quantitative analysis of a larger data sample could reveal a lesser problem than initially imagined. Despite the professed increased propensity of non-native English speaking ‘International’ students to commit plagiarism (Walker 2010 ), the low levels of plagiarism indicated in the set of submissions (even though almost all submitting students are NNES) indicates that this suggestion is not universally accurate, a viewpoint echoed by Soto et al. ( 2004 ).

Identified levels of contract cheating were overall very low, with a total number of 19 cases over the period, ranging from 0% to 0.94% of submissions per semester, with a mean percentage of 0.15% of the total number of submissions in the time period. This prevalence rate is significantly lower than the figures reported by Curtis and Clare et al. ( 2017 ), of 3.5% of students (not submissions) having committed these offences, and by Harper et al. ( 2020 ) of 2.6%. However, as contract cheating cases are more difficult to detect than more ‘traditional’ plagiarism offences (whether intentional or unintentional), we recognise that the detected cases are unlikely to be fully representative of the actual levels of contract cheating in the student body.

Effectiveness of the AEM in reducing plagiarism

Prior to the introduction of the AEM intervention in the April 2016 semester, the mean percentage of submissions found to contain plagiarism was 4.81% ( n  = 3137) Following the introduction of the intervention, the mean percentage of submissions found to contain plagiarism dropped to 3.03% ( n  = 9800); a 37.01% decrease from the results prior to the intervention. Although the rates of plagiarism were already low prior to the introduction of the AEM, the further reduction in plagiarism demonstrates that the intervention has achieved one of its stated aims of educating students about appropriate academic standards and reducing levels of plagiarism. These findings are in line with those of Soto et al. ( 2004 ), and Levine and Pazdernik ( 2018 ), demonstrating that training programmes such as the AEM may help reduce plagiarism.

Effectiveness of the AEM in reducing contract cheating

With regards to the prevalence of contract cheating before and after the AEM intervention, the results do show a reduction in the percentage of contract cheating cases detected, from 0.35% of submissions, to 0.08% of submissions, a 77.14% decrease. With the assumption that the decrease in identified cases is not due to any decrease in the ability of markers to detect these (given the additional training that occurred), this apparent reduction in contract cheating may be due to several factors or a combination of these factors. Firstly, an improvement in student knowledge of appropriate academic standards may have increased the awareness of what is expected of them in a university setting. Secondly, knowing that there will be increased scrutiny of their submissions regarding contract cheating, and the knowledge that samples of their work are available for checking may have increased the perceived risk of contract cheating. Thirdly, any reduction may be due to real improvements in the EAP abilities of the students. As the English language ability of students has been shown to be linked to plagiarism, the increased EAP skills of the students may have reduced the perceived need to obtain contract cheating services.

However, the relative rarity of contract cheating as a percentage of submissions, and the very small total number of cases over the entire period of investigation do not allow us to make any firm conclusions as to the effectiveness of this intervention on the reduction of detected cases of contract cheating. The relatively large number of cases identified in the October 2015 semester compared to other semesters, and the limited periods of data collection prior to the introduction of the intervention have likely made a comparison of contract cheating data before and after the intervention untenable.

Despite this, we believe that continuing with this initiative is important. By continuing to educate students in academic writing skills and expected academic practice, as well as establishing a protocol of collecting and checking student writing samples, we can reduce plagiarism, provide a disincentive for students who may seek to engage in contract cheating, and obtain a valuable data source for the further investigation of any such detected cases.

Although the preliminary results of this intervention are promising, any benefits of an intervention such as the AEM must be considered alongside an understanding of the numerous challenges of any intervention involving the collection and comparison of student writing samples.

Firstly, faculty carrying out marking of assessments must know which submissions are suspicious, and therefore warrant checking against the student fingerprints. In order to do this on an ad-hoc basis, some prior expectations as to the quality of the submitted work must be held. Although some faculty may be aware of the general quality of work they are expecting from a set of assignment submissions, the use of anonymous marking means that as long as the quality of work is generally in line with the entire cohort, markers may not necessarily detect a clear difference between contracted and legitimate assignments. As the size of student cohorts increases, this leads to a wider spread of both marks and writing styles being expected, and the likelihood of faculty having initial suspicions is further reduced, therefore compounding this problem. For institutions which have a high concentration of NNES, an additional challenge which may be encountered is that of fellow NNES students being hired for contract cheating, as opposed to ‘professional’ native English speaking contract cheating services. This sub-type of contract cheating may be more appealing to some students, as fellow NNES students may have similar writing styles and have completed the same, or similar classes. This means that the differences between these submissions and fingerprinted work may not be as apparent when compared to the results obtained from professional contract cheating websites.

Secondly, faculty may not always accurately detect cases of contract cheatings, even if a submission is checked for consistency against the fingerprinted sample. Markers will likely have differing skill levels in their ability to accurately detect differences in writing styles between a submission and a fingerprint and some cases may be missed. Therefore, any institution considering the introduction of fingerprinting must be aware of the potential increase in false negatives occurring due to some submissions not being investigated appropriately and implement training programmes to address this. This method also does not address cases where a writing sample would not be helpful in determining authorship of an assessment, such as computer coding or artwork.

Conversely, the potential risk of false positives must also be considered. If faculty members flag a submission as a possible case of contract cheating due to a change in writing styles between a fingerprint and a submitted assignment, there must be a fair and consistent approach to investigating these cases fully. Markers must also be aware that improvements in English language abilities and writing styles are likely to be seen when comparing what can be produced under timed, exam conditions, compared to a take-home assignment, as students will have had time to proofread, plan, edit, and check their final submission.

Research by Dawson et al. ( 2019 ) has indicated that the training of markers can improve their ability to identify contract cheating, therefore to minimise the problems stated above, all faculty members receive training on how to assess work for potential cases of contract cheating, and assessments are only graded by faculty who have completed this training. When checking for potential evidence of contract cheating, markers are asked to investigate several things. The initial step is an overall comparison of the student’s writing in the unsupervised, external assessment with the sample produced under exam conditions. If a student produced a flawless submission in adherence to all academic standards, but during the AEM written exam had received a low score in this area, or the overall standards of English were very different, this might indicate a second or alternate author.

Other techniques based on forensic linguistics are also used. These include comparing the submission with the sample to see if there are mismatches between the writer’s unique choice of words and individual style of writing (idiolect), and their tendency to use certain constructions (coselection and lexical choice) (Coulthard, 2010 ).

Markers are also trained to identify other potential indicators of contract cheating, either of the whole document, or of partial sections. These indicators include changes in formatting or styles of writing in different sections of the text, as well as examining the document properties for any suspicious elements such as very short editing times (indicative of content being copied into a brand new document before submission), or whether there are inconsistences in the named author of the document. Even the choice of sources used or not used in a submission could raise suspicions: for example, not citing key sources indicated during class sessions. By training all markers how to check for contract cheating, making comparisons between the sample and submissions part of the marking procedure, and carrying this procedure out on a regular basis, it is our hope that we can improve the capacity of markers to identify instances of contract cheating.

Although individually none of the above indicators would ever be considered conclusive evidence of contract cheating, and the fingerprinting method has significant limitations as discussed, all the above can be employed by a panel investigating whether academic misconduct may have occurred.

Reducing and detecting plagiarism and contract cheating requires a holistic approach to be taken (McCabe 2005 ; Morris 2018 ). We believe that initiatives such as the AEM programme which aim to improve the English capabilities of students, educate them on expected academic conduct practices, and discourage contract cheating fit this definition, and our results demonstrate how doing so may assist with this goal.

This paper has discussed the introduction of an intervention designed to improve the academic writing skills of students, reduce levels of plagiarism, and provide a tool to assist in the detection of contract cheating by capturing a ‘fingerprint’ of a writing sample.

The data collected over the course of 12 semesters show a 37.01% decrease in the rate of detected plagiarism following the introduction of the AEM intervention, and suggest that the introduction of a programme like this could help institutions with reducing plagiarism.

The levels of detected contract cheating cases did decrease following the introduction of the intervention, however, the very small numbers of detected contract cheating cases both pre and post intervention mean that we cannot make a conclusion regarding the use of collecting writing samples as an effective tool to help detect these cases. We have recognised the limitations of this fingerprinting exercise and suggested potential mitigations to these through faculty training.

Despite using a large database of student submissions ( n =  12,937), the data shows surprisingly low levels (3.36%) of detected plagiarism overall, which do not match the high prevalence of plagiarism that has previously been recorded in the literature, however, by analysing detected cases of plagiarism data as opposed to student self-reported data, it is possible that this study may have underestimated plagiarism in the student body. Previous studies have used much smaller samples of student submissions in their analysis, which suggests that different results may be obtained when examining larger sets of data. We therefore recommend that further research should try to use longitudinal university or department wide databases for analysis purposes, as opposed to individual class submissions, as this may give a more accurate representation of the prevalence of plagiarism in an institution.

The issue of academic misconduct is becoming increasingly more visible to the general public. In the United Kingdom, 40 university leaders have written to the Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation demanding a ban on companies offering contract cheating services (BBC News 2020 ), and the Advertising Standards Authority has already banned misleading advertisements from one of these companies (Advertising Standards Agency, 2019 ). We recognise that the costs required for an intervention strategy such as the AEM may pose a barrier to entry for many institutions, but given the increasing focus on academic integrity, this is not an issue that universities can afford to ignore. We therefore recommend the use of similar initiatives in other institutions as a potential method to educate students about expected academic practice, reduce plagiarism, and believe the potential benefits justify the challenges of introducing such an initiative.

Bretag et al. ( 2018 ) demonstrate the widespread nature of cheating in university exams and Harper et al. (2020) demonstrate the lack of ability of markers to detect this, which raises a question regarding this statement. However, given the relatively low stakes of this particular assessment, and that it is the writing style of the student that we are most interested in as opposed to the content , we believe this to not be of major concern.

The authors of these papers suggest that this equates to a high probability of plagiarism having occurred, however text matching software such as Turnitin does not identify plagiarism, it simply identifies similarities in documents which may indicate that plagiarism has occurred in some form. Just because there is a high degree of similarity identified, does not necessarily mean that an author has engaged in plagiarism. This may occur in cases where students have submitted improved versions of papers as part of a continuous assessment initiative.

Abbreviations

Academic English Masterclass

British University Vietnam

English for Academic Purposes

Non-Native English speaker

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Information about what plagiarism is, and how you can avoid it.

The University defines plagiarism as follows:

“Presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition, as is the use of material generated wholly or in part through use of artificial intelligence (save when use of AI for assessment has received prior authorisation e.g. as a reasonable adjustment for a student’s disability). Plagiarism can also include re-using your own work without citation. Under the regulations for examinations, intentional or reckless plagiarism is a disciplinary offence.”

The necessity to acknowledge others’ work or ideas applies not only to text, but also to other media, such as computer code, illustrations, graphs etc. It applies equally to published text and data drawn from books and journals, and to unpublished text and data, whether from lectures, theses or other students’ essays. You must also attribute text, data, or other resources downloaded from websites.

Please note that artificial intelligence (AI) can only be used within assessments where specific prior authorisation has been given, or when technology that uses AI has been agreed as reasonable adjustment for a student’s disability (such as voice recognition software for transcriptions, or spelling and grammar checkers).

The best way of avoiding plagiarism is to learn and employ the principles of good academic practice from the beginning of your university career. Avoiding plagiarism is not simply a matter of making sure your references are all correct, or changing enough words so the examiner will not notice your paraphrase; it is about deploying your academic skills to make your work as good as it can be.

Students will benefit from taking an  online course  which has been developed to provide a useful overview of the issues surrounding plagiarism and practical ways to avoid it.

Forms of plagiarism

Verbatim (word for word) quotation without clear acknowledgement Quotations must always be identified as such by the use of either quotation marks or indentation, and with full referencing of the sources cited. It must always be apparent to the reader which parts are your own independent work and where you have drawn on ideas and language from another source.

Cutting and pasting from the Internet without clear acknowledgement Information derived from the Internet must be adequately referenced and included in the bibliography. It is important to evaluate carefully all material found on the Internet, as it is less likely to have been through the same process of scholarly peer review as published sources.

Paraphrasing Paraphrasing the work of others by altering a few words and changing their order, or by closely following the structure of their argument, is plagiarism if you do not give due acknowledgement to the author whose work you are using.

A passing reference to the original author in your own text may not be enough; you must ensure that you do not create the misleading impression that the paraphrased wording or the sequence of ideas are entirely your own. It is better to write a brief summary of the author’s overall argument in your own words, indicating that you are doing so, than to paraphrase particular sections of his or her writing. This will ensure you have a genuine grasp of the argument and will avoid the difficulty of paraphrasing without plagiarising. You must also properly attribute all material you derive from lectures.

Collusion This can involve unauthorised collaboration between students, failure to attribute assistance received, or failure to follow precisely regulations on group work projects. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are entirely clear about the extent of collaboration permitted, and which parts of the work must be your own.

Inaccurate citation It is important to cite correctly, according to the conventions of your discipline. As well as listing your sources (i.e. in a bibliography), you must indicate, using a footnote or an in-text reference, where a quoted passage comes from. Additionally, you should not include anything in your references or bibliography that you have not actually consulted. If you cannot gain access to a primary source you must make it clear in your citation that your knowledge of the work has been derived from a secondary text (for example, Bradshaw, D. Title of Book, discussed in Wilson, E., Title of Book (London, 2004), p. 189).

Failure to acknowledge assistance You must clearly acknowledge all assistance which has contributed to the production of your work, such as advice from fellow students, laboratory technicians, and other external sources. This need not apply to the assistance provided by your tutor or supervisor, or to ordinary proofreading, but it is necessary to acknowledge other guidance which leads to substantive changes of content or approach.

Use of material written by professional agencies or other persons You should neither make use of professional agencies in the production of your work nor submit material which has been written for you even with the consent of the person who has written it. It is vital to your intellectual training and development that you should undertake the research process unaided. Under Statute XI on University Discipline, all members of the University are prohibited from providing material that could be submitted in an examination by students at this University or elsewhere.

Auto-plagiarism You must not submit work for assessment that you have already submitted (partially or in full), either for your current course or for another qualification of this, or any other, university, unless this is specifically provided for in the special regulations for your course. Where earlier work by you is citable, ie. it has already been published, you must reference it clearly. Identical pieces of work submitted concurrently will also be considered to be auto-plagiarism.

Why does plagiarism matter?

Plagiarism is a breach of academic integrity. It is a principle of intellectual honesty that all members of the academic community should acknowledge their debt to the originators of the ideas, words, and data which form the basis for their own work. Passing off another’s work as your own is not only poor scholarship, but also means that you have failed to complete the learning process. Plagiarism is unethical and can have serious consequences for your future career; it also undermines the standards of your institution and of the degrees it issues.

Why should you avoid plagiarism?

There are many reasons to avoid plagiarism. You have come to university to learn to know and speak your own mind, not merely to reproduce the opinions of others - at least not without attribution. At first it may seem very difficult to develop your own views, and you will probably find yourself paraphrasing the writings of others as you attempt to understand and assimilate their arguments. However it is important that you learn to develop your own voice. You are not necessarily expected to become an original thinker, but you are expected to be an independent one - by learning to assess critically the work of others, weigh up differing arguments and draw your own conclusions. Students who plagiarise undermine the ethos of academic scholarship while avoiding an essential part of the learning process.

You should avoid plagiarism because you aspire to produce work of the highest quality. Once you have grasped the principles of source use and citation, you should find it relatively straightforward to steer clear of plagiarism. Moreover, you will reap the additional benefits of improvements to both the lucidity and quality of your writing. It is important to appreciate that mastery of the techniques of academic writing is not merely a practical skill, but one that lends both credibility and authority to your work, and demonstrates your commitment to the principle of intellectual honesty in scholarship.

What happens if you are thought to have plagiarised?

The University regards plagiarism in examinations as a serious matter. Cases will be investigated and penalties may range from deduction of marks to expulsion from the University, depending on the seriousness of the occurrence. Even if plagiarism is inadvertent, it can result in a penalty. The forms of plagiarism listed above are all potentially disciplinary offences in the context of formal assessment requirements.

The regulations regarding conduct in examinations apply equally to the ‘submission and assessment of a thesis, dissertation, essay, or other coursework not undertaken in formal examination conditions but which counts towards or constitutes the work for a degree or other academic award’. Additionally, this includes the transfer and confirmation of status exercises undertaken by graduate students. Cases of suspected plagiarism in assessed work are investigated under the disciplinary regulations concerning conduct in examinations. Intentional plagiarism in this context means that you understood that you were breaching the regulations and did so intending to gain advantage in the examination. Reckless, in this context, means that you understood or could be expected to have understood (even if you did not specifically consider it) that your work might breach the regulations, but you took no action to avoid doing so. Intentional or reckless plagiarism may incur severe penalties, including failure of your degree or expulsion from the university.

If plagiarism is suspected in a piece of work submitted for assessment in an examination, the matter will be referred to the Proctors. They will thoroughly investigate the claim and call the student concerned for interview. If at this point there is no evidence of a breach of the regulations, no further disciplinary action will be taken although there may still be an academic penalty. However, if it is concluded that a breach of the regulations may have occurred, the Proctors will refer the case to the Student Disciplinary Panel.

If you are suspected of plagiarism your College Secretary/Academic Administrator and subject tutor will support you through the process and arrange for a member of Congregation to accompany you to all hearings. They will be able to advise you what to expect during the investigation and how best to make your case. The OUSU Student Advice Service can also provide useful information and support. 

Does this mean that I shouldn’t use the work of other authors?

On the contrary, it is vital that you situate your writing within the intellectual debates of your discipline. Academic essays almost always involve the use and discussion of material written by others, and, with due acknowledgement and proper referencing, this is clearly distinguishable from plagiarism. The knowledge in your discipline has developed cumulatively as a result of years of research, innovation and debate. You need to give credit to the authors of the ideas and observations you cite. Not only does this accord recognition to their work, it also helps you to strengthen your argument by making clear the basis on which you make it. Moreover, good citation practice gives your reader the opportunity to follow up your references, or check the validity of your interpretation.

Does every statement in my essay have to be backed up with references?

You may feel that including the citation for every point you make will interrupt the flow of your essay and make it look very unoriginal. At least initially, this may sometimes be inevitable. However, by employing good citation practice from the start, you will learn to avoid errors such as close paraphrasing or inadequately referenced quotation. It is important to understand the reasons behind the need for transparency of source use.

All academic texts, even student essays, are multi-voiced, which means they are filled with references to other texts. Rather than attempting to synthesise these voices into one narrative account, you should make it clear whose interpretation or argument you are employing at any one time - whose ‘voice’ is speaking.

If you are substantially indebted to a particular argument in the formulation of your own, you should make this clear both in footnotes and in the body of your text according to the agreed conventions of the discipline, before going on to describe how your own views develop or diverge from this influence.

On the other hand, it is not necessary to give references for facts that are common knowledge in your discipline. If you are unsure as to whether something is considered to be common knowledge or not, it is safer to cite it anyway and seek clarification. You do need to document facts that are not generally known and ideas that are interpretations of facts. 

Does this only matter in exams?

Although plagiarism in weekly essays does not constitute a University disciplinary offence, it may well lead to College disciplinary measures. Persistent academic under-performance can even result in your being sent down from the University. Although tutorial essays traditionally do not require the full scholarly apparatus of footnotes and referencing, it is still necessary to acknowledge your sources and demonstrate the development of your argument, usually by an in-text reference. Many tutors will ask that you do employ a formal citation style early on, and you will find that this is good preparation for later project and dissertation work. In any case, your work will benefit considerably if you adopt good scholarly habits from the start, together with the techniques of critical thinking and writing described above.

As junior members of the academic community, students need to learn how to read academic literature and how to write in a style appropriate to their discipline. This does not mean that you must become masters of jargon and obfuscation; however the process is akin to learning a new language. It is necessary not only to learn new terminology, but the practical study skills and other techniques which will help you to learn effectively.

Developing these skills throughout your time at university will not only help you to produce better coursework, dissertations, projects and exam papers, but will lay the intellectual foundations for your future career. Even if you have no intention of becoming an academic, being able to analyse evidence, exercise critical judgement, and write clearly and persuasively are skills that will serve you for life, and which any employer will value.

Borrowing essays from other students to adapt and submit as your own is plagiarism, and will develop none of these necessary skills, holding back your academic development. Students who lend essays for this purpose are doing their peers no favours.

Unintentional plagiarism

Not all cases of plagiarism arise from a deliberate intention to cheat. Sometimes students may omit to take down citation details when taking notes, or they may be genuinely ignorant of referencing conventions. However, these excuses offer no sure protection against a charge of plagiarism. Even in cases where the plagiarism is found to have been neither intentional nor reckless, there may still be an academic penalty for poor practice.

It is your responsibility to find out the prevailing referencing conventions in your discipline, to take adequate notes, and to avoid close paraphrasing. If you are offered induction sessions on plagiarism and study skills, you should attend. Together with the advice contained in your subject handbook, these will help you learn how to avoid common errors. If you are undertaking a project or dissertation you should ensure that you have information on plagiarism and collusion. If ever in doubt about referencing, paraphrasing or plagiarism, you have only to ask your tutor.

Examples of plagiarism

There are some helpful examples of plagiarism-by-paraphrase and you will also find extensive advice on the referencing and library skills pages.

The following examples demonstrate some of the common pitfalls to avoid. These examples use the referencing system prescribed by the History Faculty but should be of use to students of all disciplines.

Source text

From a class perspective this put them [highwaymen] in an ambivalent position. In aspiring to that proud, if temporary, status of ‘Gentleman of the Road’, they did not question the inegalitarian hierarchy of their society. Yet their boldness of act and deed, in putting them outside the law as rebellious fugitives, revivified the ‘animal spirits’ of capitalism and became an essential part of the oppositional culture of working-class London, a serious obstacle to the formation of a tractable, obedient labour force. Therefore, it was not enough to hang them – the values they espoused or represented had to be challenged.

(Linebaugh, P., The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1991), p. 213. [You should give the reference in full the first time you use it in a footnote; thereafter it is acceptable to use an abbreviated version, e.g. Linebaugh, The London Hanged, p. 213.]

Plagiarised

• Although they did not question the inegalitarian hierarchy of their society, highwaymen became an essential part of the oppositional culture of working-class London, posing a serious threat to the formation of a biddable labour force. (This is a patchwork of phrases copied verbatim from the source, with just a few words changed here and there. There is no reference to the original author and no indication that these words are not the writer’s own.)
• Although they did not question the inegalitarian hierarchy of their society, highwaymen exercised a powerful attraction for the working classes. Some historians believe that this hindered the development of a submissive workforce. (This is a mixture of verbatim copying and acceptable paraphrase. Although only one phrase has been copied from the source, this would still count as plagiarism. The idea expressed in the first sentence has not been attributed at all, and the reference to ‘some historians’ in the second is insufficient. The writer should use clear referencing to acknowledge all ideas taken from other people’s work.)
• Although they did not question the inegalitarian hierarchy of their society, highwaymen ‘became an essential part of the oppositional culture of working-class London [and] a serious obstacle to the formation of a tractable, obedient labour force’.1 (This contains a mixture of attributed and unattributed quotation, which suggests to the reader that the first line is original to this writer. All quoted material must be enclosed in quotation marks and adequately referenced.)
• Highwaymen’s bold deeds ‘revivified the “animal spirits” of capitalism’ and made them an essential part of the oppositional culture of working-class London.1 Peter Linebaugh argues that they posed a major obstacle to the formation of an obedient labour force. (Although the most striking phrase has been placed within quotation marks and correctly referenced, and the original author is referred to in the text, there has been a great deal of unacknowledged borrowing. This should have been put into the writer’s own words instead.)
• By aspiring to the title of ‘Gentleman of the Road’, highwaymen did not challenge the unfair taxonomy of their society. Yet their daring exploits made them into outlaws and inspired the antagonistic culture of labouring London, forming a grave impediment to the development of a submissive workforce. Ultimately, hanging them was insufficient – the ideals they personified had to be discredited.1 (This may seem acceptable on a superficial level, but by imitating exactly the structure of the original passage and using synonyms for almost every word, the writer has paraphrased too closely. The reference to the original author does not make it clear how extensive the borrowing has been. Instead, the writer should try to express the argument in his or her own words, rather than relying on a ‘translation’ of the original.)

Non-plagiarised

• Peter Linebaugh argues that although highwaymen posed no overt challenge to social orthodoxy – they aspired to be known as ‘Gentlemen of the Road’ – they were often seen as anti-hero role models by the unruly working classes. He concludes that they were executed not only for their criminal acts, but in order to stamp out the threat of insubordinacy.1 (This paraphrase of the passage is acceptable as the wording and structure demonstrate the reader’s interpretation of the passage and do not follow the original too closely. The source of the ideas under discussion has been properly attributed in both textual and footnote references.)
• Peter Linebaugh argues that highwaymen represented a powerful challenge to the mores of capitalist society and inspired the rebelliousness of London’s working class.1 (This is a brief summary of the argument with appropriate attribution.) 1 Linebaugh, P., The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1991), p. 213.

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What Is Considered Plagiarism And How to Avoid It

Students often encounter the term plagiarism as part of their school or university’s academic honesty policy. The word might also be referenced in a course syllabus, or perhaps be covered by an instructor or librarian during a class session.

Plagiarism is usually couched in strong language about the seriousness of the offense. To plagiarize, as defined by the "Merriam-Webster Dictionary,” means “to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own” and “to commit literary theft” by failing to acknowledge or cite source material.

"Think of Google Books posting entire pages and chapters online, YouTube hosting music and movies, or sites copying and cross-posting content from other sites,” said Brian Ryckman , eLearning Librarian at Southern New Hampshire University.

As a librarian, Ryckman works with students on a daily basis to address concerns about researching, using and citing information. The majority of questions he receives are about how to cite sources correctly, followed by when to cite. Below are answers to such questions as well as other things you should know about the topic, including some ways to avoid plagiarism.

Types of Plagiarism

The Plagiarism Spectrum is a continuum of 10 common types of plagiarism compiled by Turnitin, a company that provides tools to ensure originality for educators. Some of the major types include:

• Copying or submitting someone else's work – From copying-and-pasting to buying term papers online, this is one of the most frequent and most serious types of plagiarism, according to Turnitin's worldwide survey.
• Improper citation – This form of plagiarism can take various forms, such as not using quotation marks correctly, paraphrasing multiple sources by cobbling them together, and citing non-existent sources or inaccurate information from your sources.
• Self-plagiarism – Contrary to what many students believe, it is possible to plagiarize yourself (for example, borrowing "generously from [your own] previous work without citation," or turning in a paper for one class that you wrote for another).

Intent to cheat and extent of plagiarism are important factors when it comes to assessing the severity of a plagiarism case, according to Tracey Bretag in a "PLOS Medicine" article titled “Challenges in Addressing Plagiarism in Education.” Intention is especially important when evaluating cases of accidental plagiarism, which can result from poor note taking, not quoting or citing properly or paraphrasing incorrectly.

"Librarians have countless stories about people copying a quote or statistic, and then needing help to track down the source days later with very little information about where or how the source was found," Ryckman said. "There is so much information available and many paths to find supporting research that it's no wonder students have difficulty tracking down sources."

Before the ubiquity of the internet, students often used the note card system for researching. They would go the library and write longhand on index cards to track topics, sources, key information and ideas (paraphrased from the original), as well as page numbers from library books and other resources. The libraries, meanwhile, functioned as informational gatekeepers, helping to curate credible sources and reputable works for students and researchers to reference.

What Constitutes Plagiarism in the Digital Age?

A 2011 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center and "Chronicle of Higher Education" found that “(most) college presidents (55%) say that plagiarism in students’ papers has increased over the past 10 years. Among those who have seen an increase in plagiarism, 89% say computers and the internet have played a major role.”

Today, many students in the United States applying to university as freshmen have grown up as digital natives, with unprecedented access to information, resources, knowledge, expertise and opinions by way of computers, mobile devices and other technologies. Libraries are now expected to teach people how to determine what information is trustworthy and reliable, according to Pew Research Center’s 2016 survey on libraries. That’s no easy feat in a world where the answers to questions are available as Google search results, Wikipedia entries, Facebook posts, Twitter hashtags, YouTube videos, Reddit forums, news sites (real and fake) and more.

Students are often told that general or common knowledge does not require citation. When it comes to what is common knowledge in respect to plagiarism, this includes facts that are widely known to the public, ones that are not the results of original or unique research. Such facts are available from numerous (credible) sources and are not protected by copyright laws.

Common knowledge examples include the following:

• Two-thirds of Earth’s surface is covered by water.
• Citrus fruits are a good source of vitamin C.
• Mars is the fourth planet from the sun in our solar system.
• Columbus set sail across the Atlantic Ocean in 1492.
• Leonardo da Vinci painted La Giaconda, referred to as the Mona Lisa in English.

Context matters when it comes to common knowledge. "I think we can all agree, for example, that bats are nocturnal mammals. But if we were to say bats are nocturnal mammals whose population has been decimated by White-Nose Syndrome, then we want to cite the source from which we learned that the bat population has been affected," Ryckman said. "Not only does including the source strengthen our argument, it also gives the reader an opportunity to learn more."

Facts serve an essential role in research papers or projects, but real learning is more than simply memorizing or replicating facts. Students should understand the material, demonstrate that understanding, and contribute their original thoughts, comparisons or interpretations.

Knowledge does not exist in a vacuum, which is why learning how to cite your sources and influences is a basic life skill. “Citing helps to strengthen one’s argument by referring to previous research and ideas from experts and industry,” Ryckman said. “Understanding what has been written about in one’s field helps to move conversations forward and not rehash the same ideas over and over.”

In other words, not giving credit where it is due is a way of taking credit, and thus, of plagiarizing. Avoiding plagiarism requires students to engage deeply with ideas, research and readings; synthesize learned material with original thinking and analysis; and properly cite others’ work as they build on and contribute to existing knowledge on topics.

There’s a world (wide web) of information out there. For instructors, teachers, librarians, professors, and other educators, the challenge is teaching people to parse and use that information in ways that are ethical and responsible.

How to Avoid Plagiarism

Technology makes plagiarizing (accidentally or on purpose) a real possibility, but it also makes catching plagiarism easier. A quick Google search by a moderately tech-savvy teacher or professor can reveal plagiarized content. But an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Students, researchers and instructors alike can use online plagiarism checkers and detection software (available for free or a fee) as learning tools to help ensure the originality and integrity of their writing and research.

While such tools are useful, instructors and librarians are students’ greatest allies in the fight against plagiarism. These professionals are embracing technology to help teach fundamental digital and information literacy skills, including finding, assessing and integrating sources (including images) while citing and attributing them appropriately.

At SNHU, there are several avenues for students to get help finding and citing sources, according to Ryckman. "We work closely with the Writing Center, Online Writing Center, and faculty, all of which are resources to help students navigate, interpret, and cite sources. We also welcome every opportunity to show students the information landscape surrounding a discipline,” he said.

Finally, students should take advantage of the numerous educational resources available for free online - including Plagiarism.org , which defines plagiarism and explain ways to avoid it while giving examples. Other websites, such as Dictionary.com , provide citations in several formats, allowing you to easily include them in a document’s bibliography. Ryckman recommends students and faculty review the Association of College and Research Libraries' recently adopted framework for information literacy in higher education for exploring research as inquiry and scholarship as conversation.

While plagiarism is not illegal, the consequences vary by institutional or organizational policy, from a failing grade to a damaged reputation. So when in doubt about whether or not to attribute a quote or source, remember that, more often than not, cite makes right.

Sofia Tokar is a freelance copywriter and editor in higher education. Follow her on Twitter @stokar or connect on LinkedIn .

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Plagiarism in Education: What It Means and How to Avoid It

Table of Contents

Plagiarism in education is frowned upon by most writers. It’s an integral part of learning to know the severity of plagiarism .

It’s worrisome because students, in a young age, should understand the dire consequences they can face should they be accused of plagiarism. Yet, plagiarism is not only committed by students. Teachers and professors alike are not immune to such violation.

Teachers and professors may commit such offense in many ways. It can be through lecture materials or dissertations for Masters and doctorate degrees. Also, it can involve a teacher using their students work as if their own.

By reading this article, you will find out steps on how to deal with plagiarism in education.

What Is Plagiarism in Education?

Plagiarism is the act of presenting someone’s work or ideas as your own . It’s copying a text with or without their consent, by incorporating them into your work without any acknowledgment. All published and unpublished materials, whether in manuscript, printed, or electronic form, are covered under this definition.

It may be intentional, reckless, or accidental. As defined by the regulations for examinations, intentional or reckless plagiarism is a disciplinary offense.

Plagiarism is a breach of academic integrity. All members of the academic community should acknowledge their gratitude to the authors of the ideas that form the foundation of their own work. It’s an imperative part of intellectual honesty.

Plagiarism occurs when a person appropriates another’s published or recorded thoughts, formulations, or wording without attribution. This is true regardless of whether it is a newspaper article, a political speech, or a college paper.

Furthermore, plagiarism is a form of cheating, particularly in academic settings. It’s where a writing is written through appropriating unattributed material.

How to Prevent Plagiarism in Education?

While there is much discussion on the potential causes of plagiarism, only limited empirical evidence exists regarding academic interventions that may reduce this problem.

Higher education providers are facing an alarming rate of plagiarism cases. The rising availability of information sources that can be easily accessed by student writers has led to an increase in discussion about plagiarism.

Encourage the Use of Plagiarism Software Programs

The use of text matching pieces of software is one way universities have attempted to monitor and control academic integrity. Some researchers have acknowledged that these tools used to detect similarities between text submissions are effective.

Let the Students and Teachers Know About the Severity of Plagiarism

There’s also a good reason to avoid plagiarism, since it’s embarrassing and can define a person’s reputation. A college transcript illustrates who that person is and what they represent by displaying plagiarism.

Applying the principles of good academic practice at the beginning of your university career is one of the best ways to avoid plagiarism. There is more to plagiarism than simply making sure your references are all correct or changing enough words. You have to keep this in mind to make an effective paraphrase of a cited work. It’s about using your academic skills to make your work as good as possible.

As a result, you should avoid plagiarism because you seek top-quality results. Once you understand the principles of source use and citation, you can avoid plagiarism fairly easily.

Properly Cite Sources

Plagiarism isn’t something to be expected at all. In fact, most plagiarism – accidental or unintentional – occurs at the exact time one would expect.

Students are anxious about their grades, pressured by deadlines. Demotivation, personal problems, and various factors adds to their problem when trying to work on activities. The plagiarism that arises too often comes from that.

“Don’t do it” is sometimes easier said than done. The Council of Writing Program Administrators’ statement on best practices provides some simple preventative measures to prevent plagiarism .

Which is why it’s important to teach students how to cite properly. Schools and universities include such a lecture in their curriculum to help combat the prevalence of plagiarism amongst students. As they learn it, they will understand the magnitude of such writing offense should they decide not to cite their sources properly.

Education today is drastically different. It is becoming more digitally based. This digital shift has brought with it concerns on how students are receiving the education they crave.

With the increasing number of digital sources to learn from, plagiarism has increased as well. It is important that students take into consideration the ethical implications of using the online sources that they rely on today.

Pam is an expert grammarian with years of experience teaching English, writing and ESL Grammar courses at the university level. She is enamored with all things language and fascinated with how we use words to shape our world.

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ChatGPT Is Making Universities Rethink Plagiarism

In late December of his sophomore year, Rutgers University student Kai Cobbs came to a conclusion he never thought possible:  Artificial intelligence might just be dumber than humans. 

After listening to his peers rave about the generative AI tool  ChatGPT , Cobbs decided to toy around with the chatbot while writing an essay on the history of capitalism. Best known for its ability to generate long-form written content in response to user input prompts, Cobbs expected the tool to produce a nuanced and thoughtful response to his specific research directions. Instead, his screen produced a generic, poorly written paper he’d never dare to claim as his own. 

“The quality of writing was appalling. The phrasing was awkward and it lacked complexity,” Cobbs says. “I just logically can’t imagine a student using writing that was generated through ChatGPT for a paper or anything when the content is just plain bad.” 

Not everyone shares Cobbs’ disdain. Ever since OpenAI launched the chatbot in November,  educators have been struggling with how to handle a new wave of student work produced with the help of artificial intelligence. While some public school systems, like New York City’s, have banned the use of ChatGPT on school devices and networks to curb cheating, universities have been reluctant to follow suit. In higher education, the introduction of generative AI has raised thorny questions about the definition of plagiarism and academic integrity on campuses where new digital research tools come into play all the time. 

Make no mistake, the birth of ChatGPT does not mark the emergence of concerns relating to the improper use of the internet in academia. When  Wikipedia launched in 2001 , universities nationwide were  scrambling to decipher their own research philosophies and understandings of honest academic work, expanding policy boundaries to match pace with technological innovation. Now, the stakes are a little more complex, as schools figure out how to treat bot-produced work rather than weird attributional logistics. The world of higher education is playing a familiar game of catch-up, adjusting their rules, expectations, and perceptions as other professions adjust, too. The only difference now is that the internet can think for itself. 

According to ChatGPT, the definition of plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s work or ideas without giving proper credit to the original author. But when the work is generated by some thing rather than some one , this definition is tricky to apply. As Emily Hipchen, a board member of Brown University’s Academic Code Committee, puts it, the use of generative AI by students leads to a critical point of contention. “If [plagiarism] is stealing from a person,” she says, “then I don’t know that we have a person who is being stolen from.”

Hipchen is not alone in her speculation. Alice Dailey, chair of the Academic Integrity Program at Villanova University, is also grappling with the idea of classifying an algorithm as a person, specifically if the algorithm involves text generation.

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Dailey believes that eventually professors and students are going to need to understand that digital tools that generate text, rather than just collect facts, are going to need to fall under the umbrella of things that can be plagiarized from. 

Although Dailey acknowledges that this technological growth incites new concerns in the world of academia, she doesn’t find it to be a realm entirely unexplored. “I think we’ve been in a version of this territory for a while already,” Dailey says. “Students who commit plagiarism often borrow material from a ‘somewhere’—a website, for example, that doesn’t have clear authorial attribution. I suspect the definition of plagiarism will expand to include things that produce.” 

Eventually, Dailey believes, a student who uses text from ChatGPT will be seen as no different than one that copies and pastes chunks of text from Wikipedia without attribution. 

Students’ views on ChatGPT are another issue entirely. There are those, like Cobbs, who can’t imagine putting their name on anything bot-generated, but there are others who see it as just another tool, like spellcheck or even a calculator. For Brown University sophomore Jacob Gelman, ChatGPT exists merely as a convenient research assistant and nothing more.

“Calling the use of ChatGPT to pull reliable sources from the internet ‘cheating’ is absurd. It’s like saying using the internet to conduct research is unethical,” Gelman says. “To me, ChatGPT is the research equivalent of [typing assistant] Grammarly. I use it out of practicality and that’s really all.” Cobbs expressed similar sentiment, comparing the AI bot to “an online encyclopedia.”

But while students like Gelman use the bot to speed up research, others take advantage of the high-capacity prompt input feature to generate completed works for submission. It might seem obvious what qualifies as cheating here, but different schools across the country offer contrasting takes.

According to Carlee Warfield, chair of Bryn Mawr College’s Student Honor Board, the school considers any use of these AI platforms as plagiarism. The tool’s popularization just calls for greater focus in evaluating the intent behind students’ violations. Warfield explains that students who turn in essays entirely produced by AI are categorically different from those who borrow from online tools without knowledge of standard citations. Because the ChatGPT phenomenon is still new, students’ confusion surrounding the ethics is understandable. And it's unclear what policies will remain in place once the dust settles—at any school.

In the midst of fundamental change in both the academic and technological spheres, universities are forced to reconsider their definitions of academic integrity to reasonably reflect the circumstances of society. The only problem is, society shows no stagnance. 

“Villanova’s current academic integrity code will be updated to include language that prohibits the use of these tools to generate text that then students represent as text they generated independently,” Dailey explained. “But I think it’s an evolving thing. And what it can do and what we will then need in order to keep an eye on will also be kind of a moving target.”

In addition to increasingly complex questions about whether ChatGPT is a research tool or a plagiarism engine, there’s also the possibility that it can be  used for learning. In other educational settings, teachers see it as a way to show students the shortcomings of AI. Some instructors are already  modifying how they teach by giving students assignments bots couldn’t complete, like those that require personal details or anecdotes. There’s also the matter of detecting AI use in students’ work, which is a  burgeoning cottage industry all its own. 

Ultimately, Dailey says, schools may need rules that reflect a range of variables.

“My guess is that there will be the development of some broad blanket policies that essentially say, unless you have permission from a professor to use AI tools, using them will be considered a violation of the academic integrity code,” Dailey says. “That then gives faculty broad latitude to use it in their teaching or in their assignments, as long as they are stipulating explicitly that they are allowing it.”

As for ChatGTP, the program agrees. “Advances in fields such as artificial intelligence are expected to drive significant innovation in the coming years,” it says, when asked how schools can combat academic dishonesty. “Schools should constantly review and update their academic honor codes as technology evolves to ensure they are addressing the current ways in which technology is being used in academic settings.”

But, a bot would say that. 

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Plagiarism in nursing education and the ethical implications in practice

An important ethical issue in nursing education continues to be the evolving concerns of plagiarism. Plagiarism presents itself in a variety of different circumstances, which can influence both the classroom and the clinical environment. Nursing educators often struggle with how to handle the impact of plagiarism. This article aims to provide nursing educators with some practical learning strategies and recommendations to address present day plagiarism issues.

1. Introduction

Plagiarism has been recognized as a violation of academic integrity for centuries and continues to be a prominent issue in nursing education. With the internet age and the access to a wealth of information at one's fingertips, plagiarism can easily occur among today's college students ( Price, 2014 ; Smith, 2016b ). Although the incidence of detecting plagiarism has changed over the years, the definition has not. The act of plagiarism has evolved into an important ethical issue in nursing, requiring nursing educators to consider the academic honesty of students who plagiarize. It is not only the act of plagiarism that interests nursing educators, but the possibility of future unethical actions from those who plagiarize intentionally or unintentionally. It is no secret that the professional role of the nurse requires many characteristics such as honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness to name a few ( Price, 2014 ; Smedley et al., 2015 ; Smith, 2016b ). In fact, according to the 2017 Gallup report for the past 16 years, nursing has been ranked the highest among all professions in the areas of honesty and ethics ( Brenan, 2017 ; Moore and Gaviola, 2018 ; Norman, 2016 ).

2. Main text

Plagiarism is not as clear-cut as its definition states. Whether intentional or unintentional, the use of another's words without proper acknowledgment and paraphrasing only covers the surface of the act of plagiarism. Self-plagiarism can be an additional aspect to consider when exploring plagiarism ( Smith, 2016b ; Souza, 2016 ). Further description of this topic within the literature uncovers a more complex process, making the topic one of much debate and concern for both educator and learner. Students may not respect the rules of plagiarism, by either not reading the policies or simply choosing not to adhere to them ( Souza, 2016 ). Adding to the complexity of the issue is the lack of standardization in how educators deal with plagiarism. Often instructors in the same course and the same program will have varied methods in penalties regarding plagiarism. Most institutions of higher learning have well-established policies in place for plagiarism regarding academic integrity; however, various interpretations of plagiarism by both the student and educator make plagiarism a complex issue ( Souza, 2016 ). A review of the literature suggests that plagiarism is indeed perceived differently by students and educators ( Price, 2014 ; Smedley et al., 2015 ). Plagiarism is considered by most educators to be deeply rooted in ethics and morals when committed intentionally ( Smith, 2016b ).

Thornock (2013) studied nursing students and academic integrity. She focused on the classroom as well as the relationship between dishonest acts, such as plagiarism, and patient-centered care. Deterrence of this type of behavior was encouraged early to thwart ethical issues and poor outcomes. Thornock (2013) also addressed the significance of plagiarism in nursing education as a moral concern. She supported the overall goal of the nurse educator in preparing students to provide safe and effective care but sees plagiarism as a potential problem in reaching this goal.

Teaching students the fundamentals of American Psychological Association (APA) formatting is an important step that nursing faculty often neglect. Price (2014) discussed the increase in plagiarism specifically among nursing students. It was noted that increased school pressures felt by students has led to a rise in plagiarism, and the use of plagiarism detection software has made it easy for nursing faculty to detect this growth. Souza (2016) discussed concerns over students who intentionally commit plagiarism and whether they may more likely become a nursing professional that engages in dishonest and unethical acts. Therefore, providing training on what constitutes plagiarism is more than ever encouraged among nursing educators.

Upon entering nursing school, students often are exposed to other forms of referencing styles. One of the potential challenges facing nursing students is the lack of preparation regarding APA formatting style. The magnitude of this is essential for nursing students to understand how its use provides nursing a voice in scientific literature. Resources such as student guides to writing APA papers may provide step-by-step instructions on how to format written work. In addition to guides, most universities have writing centers available to assist students in writing and citing in APA style. This style of writing may be intimidating to students who have not been exposed to it before; which, unfortunately may lead to unintentional plagiarism acts, such as parenthetical citation errors and improper referencing of sources utilized.

A strategy that nursing educators might consider is having beginning nursing students research available resources to aid in APA writing. This might include having assignments, discussion boards, and/or group activities in which students are assigned to visit on-campus and online resources for writing help. Other APA introduction activities might include quizzes to test student knowledge regarding APA basics. These quizzes can provide educators with informal feedback regarding problematic areas for students. Educators thus can promote early intervention or provide additional practice work to help students become more familiar in weak areas.

Another strategy that nursing educators may also find useful is flipped learning. Flipped learning is the process of exposing students to content prior to class and then utilizing class time to deepen one's understanding of the material. This is one learning strategy that lends itself well to educating students on APA style. Educators might consider having students divide into smaller groups and prepare lessons on APA rules and writing guides. These student groups could then provide in-class teaching sessions on the basics of APA style to their peers. Educators may then give students in-class assignments in which they have to work with APA formatting.

Moreover, nursing faculty often have unreal expectations for nursing students who lack APA fundamental skills. Nursing faculty should ask themselves at what level should students be exposed to APA. Alternatively, the working knowledge of APA format on critical assignments should be expected of students throughout the program. One way to assist students is the use of scaffolded learning exercises. Scaffolding in education has its roots deeply embedded in the principles of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) ( Colter and Ulatowski, 2017 ). Through scaffolded learning experiences, educators assist students in the process of learning new tasks and building skill levels. The assistance that an educator provided is continually adjusted and minimized with each phase until the student has reached a level of competency. For example, advanced level nursing students might be assigned to mentor and assist new incoming students with the process of learning APA format. By setting up a peer-to-mentor support network, senior level nursing students are able to assist in reviewing and advising lower classmen in the basic rules of APA style. This provides benefits to both the upper and lower level students. Senior nursing students are required to have a strong foundation in APA style and writing techniques. Furthermore, this gives the beginning student a peer to ask questions of and to review assignments prior to submission.

Educators may also consider activities and assignments that requires students to become familiar with plagiarism detection software like TurnItIn©. Students may be given small written activities to upload into TurnItIn© for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. This will assist students to understand how plagiarism detection software works and how it might be used to screen for plagiarism issues. Another activity that can assist students using a scaffolded learning approach is to allow students to submit their work through a plagiarism detection program as a preliminary check prior to submitting the assignment to the faculty member. The student should then be given the option to view the similarity report in order to learn from their mistakes. This allows the student to see how the plagiarism detection program works and allows them to make adjustments in writing before submitting for a final grade.

An additional aspect of plagiarism education is that students understand the definition of plagiarism. Mastering the ability to paraphrase content is a skill that can be developed and improved upon with experience. Students often think that providing a citation is sufficient to attribute credit, but it is essential that students understand how to paraphrase. Allowing students the opportunity to practice scholarly writing will aid in developing their writing abilities and to help avoid plagiarism.

There are a variety of different ways in which educators can help nursing students come to understand what plagiarism is and the ethical issues surrounding it. This is an excellent time for nursing educators to bridge how ethical concerns surrounding plagiarism may also raise warning flags for students in the clinical environment. The issue of plagiarism plays well into the ethics of a professional nurse. Helping the student to understand the academic penalties of plagiarism is only one aspect. Nursing student must also understand the ethical and moral relationship between professionalism and plagiarism.

The issue of plagiarism not only affects the work students perform in the classroom but also translates over to the clinical environment. Nursing educators are given the responsibility to address plagiarism among their students to help construct future ethical and professional nurses. This act can start in the classroom by teaching how to avoid plagiarism with student assignments, employment applications, and paperwork in the clinical setting ( Smith, 2016a ). Nurses are taught to uphold the professional standards of honesty, integrity, and ethical practice. Ethical behavior will maximize a nurse's quality of patient care ( Smith, 2016b ). The nurse's professional image, seen by the patient population, is further supported by the ability to present and write proficiently in the clinical setting ( Smith, 2016a ).

Student perceptions of plagiarism and academic integrity presented a wakeup call to educators regarding the increased prevalence of plagiarism ( Woith et al., 2012 ). The reputation and integrity of the profession begins in the classroom and extends into the clinical environment. The authors concluded that the implications of dishonesty in the classroom could not be ignored, and that patient safety and outcomes must be considered ( Woith et al., 2012 ). McClung and Schneider (2018) noted that nursing student opinions regarding unethical behavior vary from that of faculty, in both classroom and clinical environments. Students may not link the threat of plagiarism to clinical documentation. The study conclusions are pertinent to nursing faculty and students and indicate the necessity of addressing what is ethical behavior. In doing so, students are less likely to be confused about issues, such as plagiarism, that involve academic honesty and ethical practice ( McClung and Schneider, 2018 ).

There are several ways a nurse can plagiarize in the clinical environment and potentially jeopardize his or her reputation as a professional. For example, using generic nursing notes for every patient is a related issue of false documentation. Another example, a nurse tasked to write policies and procedures can easily copy the digital information from other hospitals without adequately citing the material. Plagiarism seen in nursing clinical documentation or paperwork has some inherent concerns to ethical, legal, professional, and/or financial penalties. The consequences could be detrimental not only to the nurse, but to the clinical facility as well. This may include accusations of professional misconduct, job dismissal, removal of licensure, and/or copyright infringement ( Smith, 2016a ). Considering the detrimental impact that plagiarism can impose on both the nurse and/or facility, echoes the critical topic surrounding plagiarism education in nursing.

The ethical and legal implications of false documentation by using general nursing notes for every patient is a related concern. Electronic health records may also create an environment that lends itself to one size fits all documentation that can be duplicated from patient to patient. Instilling the importance of documenting each patient encounter as true and accurate is critical. Many of the same unintentional acts of plagiarism occurring in the classroom setting can be an issue for students in the clinical setting, involving documentation such as health assessments, health histories, care plans, and concept maps.

With the lack of knowledge involving plagiarism among nursing students, educators may consider the implementation of learning activities, particularly in the first semesters of a nursing program. Concerning clinical issues involving plagiarism, practicum courses in the first year of a nursing program offer an excellent time and setting to discuss the pitfalls of plagiarism in the clinical environment. Threading activities in practicum coursework will allow students an opportunity to understand the link between plagiarism and ethical practice ( Smedley et al., 2015 ). Students may then better understand why plagiarism is important to the profession of nursing. Individual and group activities may be utilized to present information to students. Examples of plagiarism in practice, followed by group discussion is one teaching method. Students may review sample documentation on a patient and then provide documentation in their own words of a similar patient to practice documentation skills. Similar versions of care plans and concept maps can be shared as examples of how easy it is to duplicate work unintentionally while providing pointers on how to prevent this from occurring in the practice setting.

Further examples of activities that explore plagiarism in clinical practice may include the review of SOAP (subjective, objective, assessment, and plan) notes and nursing progress notes. Comparison of students' SOAP notes on different patients will allow students to visualize whether they provide individualized and personal charting on their patients or if it is a ‘one size fits all’ charting style. As students progress through a nursing program SOAP notes may easily and unintentionally become more of a standard form than individualized documentation. Non-individualized patient charting may also be recognized in nursing progress notes when brought to the attention of upperclassmen through activities such as pretend chart audits. Peer chart audits would allow students to review each other's charting and look for self-plagiarism, detect false charting of items that were not actually done, and discover charting that lacks distinction from patient to patient.

Students in their last semester of nursing school may engage in activities of analyzing their fellow classmates charting from a legal document standpoint. Educators may create a scenario in which nursing notes are involved in legal proceedings. This type of activity would involve understanding the importance of the honest and concise manner in which their documentation is written. This type of activity is a good way to remind upcoming graduates of the importance of ethical practice as it pertains to documentation.

3. Conclusions

The act of plagiarism has evolved into an important ethical issue in the nursing classroom. Certainly, literature continues to convey the significance and impact of plagiarism issues for students. Institutions of higher learning continue to implement policies to deter plagiarism; however, the learner's perception of plagiarism is varied as well as the educator's consistency in dealing with it. Practical solutions to the increasing problem of plagiarism involve setting clear parameters regarding plagiarism. Also important is the ability for students to link plagiarism to practice across the classroom and clinical environment. Introducing low stakes assignments early into the nursing curriculum can help foster student learning.

Honesty and ethical standards are important for nursing students to understand, including the act of plagiarism and all of its implications. This worry extends into nursing practice, and places the reputation of nursing as being one of the most trusted professions at risk. The impact plagiarism has on higher education is critical and nursing educators understand if not addressed then unethical behavior may carry over into nursing practice.

Declarations

Author contribution statement.

All authors listed have significantly contributed to the development and the writing of this article.

Funding statement

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

No additional information is available for this paper.

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Plagiarism: Don't let it happen to you!

• Academic Integrity @ SCU
• Plagiarism Defined

Types of Plagiarism

• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Paraphrasing
• Citing Properly

"Plagiarism" in Popular Culture

• Google vs Oracle (2021)
• Melanie Trump & Michelle Obama Speeches (2016)
• Pharrell Williams & Robin Thicke ("Blurred Lines") vs Marvin Gaye (2015)
• Brian Williams and NBC News (2015)
• Jayson Blair and The New York Times (2003)
• Johnny Cash vs Gordon Jenkins, "Folsom Prison Blues" (1968)

Direct Plagiarism

Also known as verbatim plagiarism, this is one of the most serious academic offenses. It involves deliberately copying your sources word for word without citing them, trying to claim ownership of the text falsely, and making most of your content just a copy/paste of someone else’s ideas.

Don't be a "Ghost Writer" - The writer who turns in another's work, word-for-word, as his or her own.

Mosaic Plagiarism

This involves intertwining someone else’s work with your original research and opinions. This is one of the most deceptive forms of plagiarism and often includes copying text from several different sources, paraphrasing a few sentences, and then adding a few original lines – all without changing the ultimate meaning of the source content.

Paraphrasing Plagiarism

As its name suggests, this involves paraphrasing, or simply altering, a few phrases from your source material while still keeping most of the structure and meaning intact. This is the most common type of plagiarism and one of the most difficult to avoid. 

Keep in mind that translating another’s work from a foreign language into English is also a type of paraphrasing plagiarism.

Self-Plagiarism

This involves copying all or a large chunk of your own previous original work without citing it as a source in your new paper. In essence, it’s the same as verbatim plagiarism, even though you’re using your own work. In instances where you copy your work for another course (for example), you likely won't get caught, but that doesn't make it ethical.

Don't be a "Self-Stealer" - The writer who borrows generously from his or her previous work, with or without citing properly. Set yourself an expectation of originality that aligns with the expectations set by SCU.

Accidental Plagiarism

This typically refers to mistakes made in the citation, such as leaving out the quotation marks; you’ve paraphrased a passage from another’s piece of writing without realizing it and you’ve forgotten to include the source. Accidental plagiarism is one of the most difficult to avoid, so it's important to be diligent in your note-taking.

Source-Based Plagiarism

This involves omitting one or more sources from your references list. In cases where you pull information from several different texts, you may only cite the primary data source. The most severe source-based plagiarism involves falsifying sources and making up facts and data. 

FixGerald. (2021, August 4). Everything you should know about types of plagiarism.  https://fixgerald.com/blog/types-of-plagiarism

NYU Libraries. (2022, December 16). Plagiarism and how to avoid it.  https://guides.nyu.edu/plagiarism

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Science News

How chatgpt and similar ai will disrupt education.

Teachers are concerned about cheating and inaccurate information

Students are turning to ChatGPT for homework help. Educators have mixed feeling about the tool and other generative AI.

Glenn Harvey

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By Kathryn Hulick

April 12, 2023 at 7:00 am

“We need to talk,” Brett Vogelsinger said. A student had just asked for feedback on an essay. One paragraph stood out. Vogelsinger, a ninth grade English teacher in Doylestown, Pa., realized that the student hadn’t written the piece himself. He had used ChatGPT.

The artificial intelligence tool, made available for free late last year by the company OpenAI, can reply to simple prompts and generate essays and stories. It can also write code.

Within a week, it had more than a million users. As of early 2023, Microsoft planned to invest $10 billion into OpenAI , and OpenAI’s value had been put at $29 billion, more than double what it was in 2021.

It’s no wonder other tech companies have been racing to put out competing tools. Anthropic, an AI company founded by former OpenAI employees, is testing a new chatbot called Claude. Google launched Bard in early February, and the Chinese search company Baidu released Ernie Bot in March.

A lot of people have been using ChatGPT out of curiosity or for entertainment. I asked it to invent a silly excuse for not doing homework in the style of a medieval proclamation. In less than a second, it offered me: “Hark! Thy servant was beset by a horde of mischievous leprechauns, who didst steal mine quill and parchment, rendering me unable to complete mine homework.”

But students can also use it to cheat. ChatGPT marks the beginning of a new wave of AI, a wave that’s poised to disrupt education.

When Stanford University’s student-run newspaper polled students at the university, 17 percent said they had used ChatGPT on assignments or exams at the end of 2022. Some admitted to submitting the chatbot’s writing as their own. For now, these students and others are probably getting away with it. That’s because ChatGPT often does an excellent job.

“It can outperform a lot of middle school kids,” Vogelsinger says. He might not have known his student had used it, except for one thing: “He copied and pasted the prompt.”

The essay was still a work in progress, so Vogelsinger didn’t see it as cheating. Instead, he saw an opportunity. Now, the student and AI are working together. ChatGPT is helping the student with his writing and research skills.

“[We’re] color-coding,” Vogelsinger says. The parts the student writes are in green. The parts from ChatGPT are in blue. Vogelsinger is helping the student pick and choose a few sentences from the AI to expand on — and allowing other students to collaborate with the tool as well. Most aren’t turning to it regularly, but a few kids really like it. Vogelsinger thinks the tool has helped them focus their ideas and get started.

This story had a happy ending. But at many schools and universities, educators are struggling with how to handle ChatGPT and other AI tools.

In early January, New York City public schools banned ChatGPT on their devices and networks. Educators were worried that students who turned to it wouldn’t learn critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. They also were concerned that the tool’s answers might not be accurate or safe. Many other school systems in the United States and around the world have imposed similar bans.

Keith Schwarz, who teaches computer science at Stanford, said he had “switched back to pencil-and-paper exams,” so students couldn’t use ChatGPT, according to the Stanford Daily .

Yet ChatGPT and its kin could also be a great service to learners everywhere. Like calculators for math or Google for facts, AI can make writing that often takes time and effort much faster. With these tools, anyone can generate well-formed sentences and paragraphs. How could this change the way we teach and learn?

Who said what?

When prompted, ChatGPT can craft answers that sound surprisingly like those from a student. We asked middle school and high school students from across the country, all participants in our Science News Learning education program , to answer some basic science questions in two sentences or less. The examples throughout the story compare how students responded with how ChatGPT responded when asked to answer the question at the same grade level.

What effect do greenhouse gases have on the Earth?

Agnes b. | grade 11, harbor city international school, minn..

Greenhouse gases effectively trap heat from dissipating out of the atmosphere, increasing the amount of heat that remains near Earth in the troposphere.

Greenhouse gases trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, causing the planet to warm up and leading to climate change and its associated impacts like sea level rise, more frequent extreme weather events and shifts in ecosystems.

The good, bad and weird of ChatGPT

ChatGPT has wowed its users. “It’s so much more realistic than I thought a robot could be,” says Avani Rao, a sophomore in high school in California. She hasn’t used the bot to do homework. But for fun, she’s prompted it to say creative or silly things. She asked it to explain addition, for instance, in the voice of an evil villain.

Given how well it performs, there are plenty of ways that ChatGPT could level the playing field for students and others working in a second language or struggling with composing sentences. Since ChatGPT generates new, original material, its text is not technically plagiarism.

Students could use ChatGPT like a coach to help improve their writing and grammar, or even to explain subjects they find challenging. “It really will tutor you,” says Vogelsinger, who had one student come to him excited that ChatGPT had clearly outlined a concept from science class.

Educators could use ChatGPT to help generate lesson plans, activities or assessments — perhaps even personalized to address the needs or goals of specific students.

Xiaoming Zhai, an expert in science education at the University of Georgia in Athens, tested ChatGPT to see if it could write an academic paper . He was impressed with how easy it was to summarize knowledge and generate good writing using the tool. “It’s really amazing,” he says.

All of this sounds wonderful, but really big problems exist. Most worrying, ChatGPT and other similar tools can often get things very wrong. They don’t pull facts from databases. Rather, they are trained to generate new text that sounds natural. They remix language without understanding it, which can lead to glaring mistakes.

The news website CNET came under fire earlier this year for using AI to churn out dozens of articles, many of them packed with errors. In an early advertisement for the Bard chatbot, it made a factual error about the James Webb Space Telescope, incorrectly claiming that it had taken the very first picture of an exoplanet. And ChatGPT said in a conversation posted on Twitter that the fastest marine mammal was the peregrine falcon. A falcon, of course, is a bird and doesn’t live in the ocean.

ChatGPT is “confidently wrong,” says Casey Fiesler, an expert in the ethics of technology at the University of Colorado Boulder. “There are mistakes and bad information.” She has made multiple TikTok videos about the pitfalls of ChatGPT .

Most of ChatGPT’s training data come from before September 2021, and it does not provide sources for its information. If asked for sources, it makes them up, Fiesler revealed in one video . Zhai, who sees the tool as an assistant, discovered the exact same thing. When he asked ChatGPT for citations, it gave him sources that looked correct. But they didn’t actually exist.

Define the term biodiversity.

Dante a. | grade 10, clark magnet high school, calif..

Biodiversity refers to the variety of living species and ecosystems that exist in a particular region or on the planet as a whole. It encompasses the different genes, species and ecosystems that make up the natural world and the relationships between them.

Biodiversity refers to the variety of living organisms that inhabit the Earth and the ecosystems they form. It includes the diversity of species, genes and ecosystems, and is important for maintaining the balance of nature and sustaining life on our planet.

How ChatGPT works

ChatGPT’s mistakes make sense if you know how it works. “It doesn’t reason. It doesn’t have ideas. It doesn’t have thoughts,” explains Emily M. Bender, a computational linguist at the University of Washington in Seattle.

ChatGPT was developed using at least two types of machine learning. The primary type is a large language model based on an artificial neural network. Loosely inspired by how neurons in the brain interact, this computing architecture finds statistical patterns in vast amounts of data.

A language model learns to predict what words will come next in a sentence or phrase by churning through vast amounts of text. It places words and phrases into a multidimensional map that represents their relationships to one another. Words that tend to come together, like peanut butter and jelly, end up closer together in this map.

The size of an artificial neural network is measured in parameters. These internal values get tweaked as the model learns. In 2020, OpenAI released GPT-3. At the time, it was the biggest language model ever, containing 175 billion parameters. It had trained on text from the internet as well as digitized books and academic journals. Training text also included transcripts of dialog, essays, exams and more, says Sasha Luccioni, a Montreal-based researcher at Hugging Face, a company that builds AI tools.

OpenAI improved upon GPT-3 to create GPT-3.5. In early 2022, the company released a fine-tuned version of GPT-3.5 called InstructGPT. This time, OpenAI added a new type of machine learning. Called reinforcement learning with human feedback, it puts people into the training process. These workers check the AI’s output. Responses that people like get rewarded. Human feedback can also help reduce hurtful, biased or inappropriate responses. This fine-tuned language model powers freely available ChatGPT. As of March, paying users receive answers powered by GPT-4, a bigger language model.

During ChatGPT’s development, OpenAI added extra safety rules to the model. It will refuse to answer certain sensitive prompts or provide harmful information. But this step raises another issue: Whose values are programmed into the bot, including what it is — or is not — allowed to talk about?

OpenAI is not offering exact details about how it developed and trained ChatGPT. The company has not released its code or training data. This disappoints Luccioni because it means the tool can’t benefit from the perspectives of the larger AI community. “I’d like to know how it works so I can understand how to make it better,” she says.

When asked to comment on this story, OpenAI provided a statement from an unnamed spokesperson. “We made ChatGPT available as a research preview to learn from real-world use, which we believe is a critical part of developing and deploying capable, safe AI systems,” the statement said. “We are constantly incorporating feedback and lessons learned.” Indeed, some experimenters have gotten the bot to say biased or inappropriate things despite the safety rules. OpenAI has been patching the tool as these problems come up.

ChatGPT is not a finished product. OpenAI needs data from the real world. The people who are using it are the guinea pigs. Notes Bender: “You are working for OpenAI for free.”

What are black holes and where are they found?

Althea c. | grade 11, waimea high school, hawaii.

A black hole is a place in space where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, may come out.

Black holes are extremely dense regions in space where the gravity is so strong that not even light can escape, and they are found throughout the universe.

ChatGPT’s academic performance

How good is ChatGPT in an academic setting? Catherine Gao, a doctor and medical researcher at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, is part of one team of researchers that is putting the tool to the test.

Gao and her colleagues gathered 50 real abstracts from research papers in medical journals and then, after providing the titles of the papers and the journal names, asked ChatGPT to generate 50 fake abstracts. The team asked people familiar with reading and writing these types of research papers to identify which were which .

“I was surprised by how realistic and convincing the generated abstracts were,” Gao says. The reviewers mistook roughly one-third of the AI-generated abstracts as human-generated.

In another study, Will Yeadon and colleagues tested whether AI tools could pass a college exam . Yeadon, a physics instructor at Durham University in England, picked an exam from a course that he teaches. The test asks students to write five short essays about physics and its history. Students have an average score of 71 percent, which he says is equivalent to an A in the United States.

Yeadon used the tool davinci-003, a close cousin of ChatGPT. It generated 10 sets of exam answers. Then Yeadon and four other teachers graded the answers using their typical standards. The AI also scored an average of 71 percent. Unlike the human students, though, it had no very low or very high marks. It consistently wrote well, but not excellently. For students who regularly get bad grades in writing, Yeadon says, it “will write a better essay than you.”

These graders knew they were looking at AI work. In a follow-up study, Yeadon plans to use work from the AI and students and not tell the graders whose is whose.

What is heat?

Precious a. | grade 6, canyon day junior high school, ariz..

Heat is the transfer of kinetic energy from one medium or object to another, or from an energy source to a medium or object through radiation, conduction and convection.

Heat is a type of energy that makes things warmer. It can be produced by burning something or through electricity.

Tools to check for cheating

When it’s unclear whether ChatGPT wrote something or not, other AI tools may help. These tools typically train on AI-generated text and sometimes human-generated text as well. They can tell you how likely it is that text was composed by an AI. Many of the existing tools were trained on older language models, but developers are working quickly to put out new, improved tools.

A company called Originality.ai sells access to a tool that trained on GPT-3. Founder Jon Gillham says that in a test of 10,000 samples of texts composed by models based on GPT-3, the tool tagged 94 percent of them correctly as AI-generated. When ChatGPT came out, his team tested a smaller set of 20 samples. Each only 500 words in length, these had been created by ChatGPT and other models based on GPT-3 and GPT-3.5. Here, Gillham says, the tool “tagged all of them as AI-generated. And it was 99 percent confident, on average.”

In late January 2023, OpenAI released its own free tool for spotting AI writing, cautioning that the tool was “not fully reliable.” The company is working to add watermarks to its AI text, which would tag the output as machine-generated, but doesn’t give details on how. Gillham describes one possible approach: Whenever it generates text, the AI ranks many different possible words for each position. If its developers told it to always choose the word ranked in third place rather than first place at specific points in its output, those words could act as a fingerprint, he says.

As AI writing tools improve, the tools to sniff them out will need to improve as well. Eventually, some sort of watermark might be the only way to sort out true authorship.

What is DNA and how is it organized?

Luke m. | grade 8, eastern york middle school, pa..

DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is kept inside the cells of living things, where it holds instructions for the genetics of the organism it is inhabiting.

DNA is like a set of instructions that tells our cells what to do. It’s organized into structures called chromosomes, which contain all of the DNA in a cell.

ChatGPT and the future of writing

There’s no doubt we will soon have to adjust to a world in which computers can write for us. But educators have made these sorts of adjustments before. As high school student Rao points out, Google was once seen as a threat to education because it made it possible to look up facts instantly. Teachers adapted by coming up with teaching and testing materials that don’t depend as heavily on memorization.

Now that AI can generate essays and stories, teachers may once again have to rethink how they teach and test. Rao says: “We might have to shift our point of view about what’s cheating and what isn’t.”

Some teachers will prevent students from using AI by limiting access to technology. Right now, Vogelsinger says, teachers regularly ask students to write out answers or essays at home. “I think those assignments will have to change,” he says. But he hopes that doesn’t mean kids do less writing.

Teaching students to write without AI’s help will remain essential, agrees Zhai. That’s because “we really care about a student’s thinking,” he stresses. And writing is a great way to demonstrate thinking. Though ChatGPT can help a student organize their thoughts, it can’t think for them, he says.

Kids still learn to do basic math even though they have calculators (which are often on the phones they never leave home without), Zhai acknowledges. Once students have learned basic math, they can lean on a calculator for help with more complex problems.

In the same way, once students have learned to compose their thoughts, they could turn to a tool like ChatGPT for assistance with crafting an essay or story. Vogelsinger doesn’t expect writing classes to become editing classes, where students brush up AI content. He instead imagines students doing prewriting or brainstorming, then using AI to generate parts of a draft, and working back and forth to revise and refine from there.

Though he’s overwhelmed about the prospect of having to adapt his teaching to another new technology, he says he is “having fun” figuring out how to navigate the new tech with his students.

Rao doesn’t see AI ever replacing stories and other texts generated by humans. Why? “The reason those things exist is not only because we want to read it but because we want to write it,” she says. People will always want to make their voices heard.

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Challenges in Addressing Plagiarism in Education

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Business School, University of South Australia, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

• Tracey Bretag

Published: December 31, 2013

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001574
• Reader Comments

Citation: Bretag T (2013) Challenges in Addressing Plagiarism in Education. PLoS Med 10(12): e1001574. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001574

Copyright: © 2013 Tracey Bretag. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: No specific funding was received to write this article.

Competing interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist.

Provenance: Commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

Summary points

• Plagiarism undermines the integrity of education and occurs at all levels of scholarship.
• Research indicates that both undergraduate and postgraduate students require training to avoid plagiarism.
• Established researchers are not immune to allegations of plagiarism.
• Educational institutions need to move beyond deterrence, detection, and punishment, and take a holistic and multi-stakeholder approach to address plagiarism.

Research Integrity Series This is one article in an occasional PLOS Medicine series on research integrity that examines issues affecting the ethics of health research worldwide.

Academic Integrity and Plagiarism

Academic integrity encompasses a number of values including honesty, trust, respect, fairness, and responsibility [1] and ideals that should be upheld by all educational stakeholders. “Academic integrity involves ensuring that in research, and in teaching and learning, both staff and students act in an honest way. They need to acknowledge the intellectual contributions of others, be open and accountable for their actions, and exhibit fairness and transparency in all aspects of scholarly endeavour” [2] . Academic integrity ensures public trust in the credibility of scholarship at all levels of education including the research process and its outcomes [3] .

Academic integrity breaches include a diverse range of unfair practices including plagiarism, cheating in exams or assignments, inappropriate collusion, theft of other students' work, paying a third party for assignments, downloading whole or part of assignments from the Internet, falsification of data, misrepresentation of records, or other actions that undermine the integrity of scholarship [4] . Plagiarism is one of the most vehemently derided breaches of academic integrity because it undermines the premise that scholarly work will make an original and honest contribution to an existing body of knowledge. Despite the fact that plagiarism occurs at all levels of scholarship, the main focus in the recent explosion of research in this area is on student plagiarism [5] – [9] . For the purpose of this paper, plagiarism is defined as the use of others' words, ideas, or creative work without appropriate acknowledgement, and does not necessarily imply intentional deceit.

Plagiarism by Students

The extent of plagiarism (in its various forms) in students' work depends in part on the methodology used to explore this issue, with most studies using self-report methodologies. The rate of plagiarism for undergraduate students varies wildly from 19% [10] , to 26% [11] , 66% [12] , and 81% [13] . Research has further highlighted issues of plagiarism by students for whom English is an Additional Language (EAL) at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Marshall and Garry [14] concluded that EAL students are significantly more likely to have engaged in serious forms of plagiarism (83%) than non-EAL students (65%); Vieyra et al. [15] determined that 47% of EAL graduate students had plagiarised in their research proposals, versus 16% of non-EAL students. Pecorari [16] found that 76% of non-native English speaking graduate students had at least one passage in a writing sample (half of which were completed PhD theses) where over 70% of the text was taken from source material. A recent survey of 15,304 Australian students, from a range of disciplines both undergraduate and postgraduate, reported that international students were more than twice as likely as domestic students to convey a lack of confidence in how to avoid an academic integrity breach [5] .

It is generally assumed that graduate students, having spent at least 15 years in the education system, are conversant with academic integrity requirements and know how to avoid plagiarism [17] ; however, it is becoming increasingly apparent that many graduate students are ill-prepared for the challenges of postgraduate study [18] , [19] and that breaches of academic integrity policy do occur among this student group [13] , [17] . Gilmore et al. [17] found that 42.6% of research proposals by science, technology, engineering, and mathematics graduate students contained plagiarism; McCullogh and Holmburg [20] reported 27% plagiarism in master's theses; and Segal et al. [21] found that 5% of medical residency applications had at least one instance of plagiarism. Results from the Academic Integrity Standards Project [4] indicated that one in five postgraduate research students had never heard of academic integrity and two in five postgraduate students said they did not know whether their university had an academic integrity policy.

Plagiarism by Established Researchers

Given the rates of plagiarism for all groups of students, coupled with research indicating that many students do not receive adequate information or training either at the undergraduate or postgraduate levels [18] , [22] – [24] , it cannot be surprising that breaches of integrity by established researchers are rife. A survey of 3,600 mid-career and 4,160 early-career scientists in the United States found that 33% of the respondents had engaged in questionable research practices relating to data, methods, policy, use of funds, outside influence, peer review, giving credit, and “cutting corners” [25] .

Media scandals regularly threaten individuals' and institutions' reputations. The widely publicised plagiarism in the dissertation of the German Minister of Defence, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg (63% of the lines on 94% of the pages) resulted in the minister's forced resignation. VroniPlag Wiki has since documented over 30 cases of plagiarism by other prominent German academics with the result that some universities have rescinded individual doctorates [26] . But the issue goes well beyond Germany and Europe, with reports of serious plagiarism by academics in numerous countries across the globe [27] – [30] .

The Complexities of Plagiarism

Writers in the field have noted the complexities of defining plagiarism [31] , [32] and identifying it, particularly for novice scholars. In two separate studies, Roig [33] , [34] asked students to identify plagiarised text and found that 40%–50% of the students did not complete the exercise correctly. Work by Marshall and Garry [14] , Yeo [35] , and Pecorari [16] , among others, concur that many students cannot identify instances of plagiarism and do not adequately understand how to paraphrase text with appropriate citation to avoid plagiarism. International EAL students are not the only group who may struggle to understand and fulfil the requirements of academic practice. The student body is increasingly diverse, and may include those from socially and academically disadvantaged backgrounds, non-traditional aged students, and those with intellectual, mental, or physical disabilities.

Given the centrality of acknowledgement to definitions of plagiarism, both students and teachers often want to know precisely when “sloppy referencing” becomes “serious plagiarism.” James et al. [36] present three aspects of what needs to be considered by academics in determining whether apparent plagiarism is “serious” and therefore requires a punitive response or whether it is a minor concern best responded to with education. The first is the student's “intent to cheat,” with “deliberately presenting the work of others as one's own” placed at the extreme, punitive end of a continuum. The second aspect is “the extent of plagiarism” with “downloaded essay handed in as own paraphrasing” again representing the extreme end of a continuum. The third aspect is the “possible response to plagiarism” that involves consideration of the first two aspects, and takes either an educative or punitive approach. Recent work by the Exemplary Academic Integrity Project [37] suggests that even apparently harsh outcomes such as suspension or expulsion are, in fact, appropriate educational outcomes for certain types of academic integrity breaches.

The issue of “self-plagiarism,” either by students or researchers, also revolves around appropriate acknowledgement. In seeking a definition of self-plagiarism for previous research on self-plagiarism in academic research, we relied on the concept of “fair use” in Australian Copyright law and determined that articles contained self-plagiarism “if they contained 10% or more of any one of the author's previous publications without appropriate attribution” [38] . Our findings indicated that 60% of the authors in the sample had self-plagiarised in at least one of their published papers. Self-plagiarism by students involves recycling previously submitted work without attribution to the original work and/or without the permission of teaching staff.

Addressing Plagiarism

Much of the research on plagiarism and other breaches of academic integrity has focused on the role of teaching and learning, particularly at the undergraduate level, with targeted induction, support, and training advocated for all students, and in particular for those from non-traditional backgrounds. Strategies to deter plagiarism include advice regarding assessment development, curriculum design, and academic skills education [7] , [39] . These deterrence strategies are advised in conjunction with detection and appropriate penalties. Often erroneously touted as a “plagiarism detection” tool, text-matching software such as Turnitin or SafeAssign provides instructors with the means to check students' work against other material on the Internet, previously submitted student papers, and journal articles. As increasing numbers of schools, colleges, and universities use text-matching software, as both an educational tool and as a deterrence, students may be less inclined to submit assignments based on “cut and paste” plagiarism.

However, plagiarism is not only an issue of student assessment. It is a symptom of a deeply entrenched academic culture that arguably places tangible rewards (grades, diplomas, publications, promotions, grants) above the intrinsic value of learning and knowledge creation. To address the ongoing issue of plagiarism and other breaches of academic integrity, educational institutions must work towards fostering a culture of integrity that goes beyond deterrence, detection, and punishment of students. Bertram Gallant and Kalichman maintain that “individual misconduct is actually a systemic issue, shaped by individual, organisational, educational/academy, and societal factors” [40] . On this basis, to nurture a community with shared academic values of integrity would require a holistic and multi-stakeholder approach encompassing educational policy makers, senior managers, teaching academics and advisors, students at all levels, researchers, funding bodies, editors, and reviewers [41] . A genuinely holistic approach would involve promoting integrity in every aspect of the academic enterprise: including university mission statements and marketing, through admissions processes [40] , to nuanced and carefully articulated policy [4] , [5] , [7] . It must include assessment practices and curriculum design [22] , [24] , information provided during orientation, and frequent and visual reminders on campus [40] . There must be embedded and targeted support in courses and at every level for students [5] , professional development for staff [7] , [42] , and research training [18] . Finally, the use of new technologies to both assist students to avoid academic integrity breaches, and as a tool to detect breaches when they occur, must be adopted [42] , [43] . While such a nuanced and all-inclusive approach to academic integrity is aspirational rather than one that exists in a single institution, two decades of research has provided evidence of the impact of individual interventions (e.g., policy, assessment design, training, detection, penalties) in addressing plagiarism. Both researchers and practitioners are now calling for stakeholders at all levels of education to recognise that the complexity of plagiarism requires an equally sophisticated and multi-pronged approach, which is both targeted and context-specific [37] .

Plagiarism is a serious breach of academic integrity in that it detracts from the value of original and honest scholarly work. While there has been an explosion of interest and research on this topic, by and large the focus has been on undergraduate students plagiarising in assessment. Recent research has demonstrated that plagiarism is a complex issue, with many stakeholder groups requiring much more induction, information, training, and support to ensure that they have the necessary understanding and skills to fulfil their academic responsibilities. Educational institutions therefore need to recognise that addressing plagiarism requires a holistic and multi-stakeholder approach which aims to foster a scholarly community based on shared understandings and practices of academic integrity.

Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks to my colleague Saadia Mahmud for her helpful advice on the structuring of this essay.

Author Contributions

Wrote the first draft of the manuscript: TB. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript: TB. ICMJE criteria for authorship read and met: TB. Agree with manuscript results and conclusions: TB.

• 1. International Center for Academic Integrity, Fundamental Values Project. Available: http://www.academicintegrity.org/fundamental_values_project/index.php . Accessed 24 August 2011.
• 2. Exemplary Academic Integrity Project (2013b) Resources on academic integrity. Available: http://resource.unisa.edu.au/course/view.php?id=6633&topic=8 . Accessed 20 August 2013.
• 3. Anderson MS, Shaw MA, Steneck NH, Konkle E, Kamata T (2013) Research integrity and misconduct in the academic profession. Paulen MB, editor. Higher education: handbook of theory and research. pp. 217–261.
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• 7. Carroll J, Appleton J (2001) Plagiarism: a good practice guide. Available: http://www.leeds.ac.uk/candit/plagiarism/brookes.pdf . Accessed 6 February 2008.
• 8. Howard RM, Robillard AE (2008) Pluralizing plagiarism: identities, contexts, pedagogies. Portsmouth (New Hampshire): Boynton/Cook Publishers Inc.
• 24. Devlin M (2002) Minimising plagiarism. Centre for Studies in Higher Education, University of Melbourne. Available: http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearning/docs/PlagMain.pdf . Accessed 20 August 2013.
• 25. Anderson MS (2008) Scientific inquiry: maintaining the legitimacy of the research enterprise. Proceedings of the 4th International Barcelona Conference on Higher Education, Vol 1. Ethics and relevance of scientific knowledge: what knowledge for society? Global University Network for Innovation. Available: www.guni-rmies.net . Accessed 6 April 2011.
• 26. Weber-Wulff D (2013) Plagiarism in German doctoral dissertations: before and beyond zu Guttenburg. Keynote Address to the Plagiarism Across Europe and Beyond Conference, Mendel University, Brno, Czech Republic, 12–13 June.
• 32. Fishman T (2009) ‘We know it when we see it’ is not good enough: toward a standard definition of plagiarism that transcends theft, fraud, and copyright. 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity, University of Wollongong, Australia, 28–30 September. Available: http://ro.uow.edu.au/apcei/09/papers/37/ . Accessed 4 July 2013.
• 36. James R, McInnes C, Devlin M (2002) Assessing learning in Australian universities. The Centre for Studies in Higher Education, University of Melbourne. Available: http://www.cshe.unimelb.edu.au/assessinglearning/docs/AssessingLearning.pdf . Accessed 20 August 2013.
• 37. Exemplary Academic Integrity Project (2013a) Academic integrity policy toolkit. Available: www.unisa.edu.au/EAIP . Accessed 22 November 2013
• 40. Bertram Gallant T, Kalichman M (2011) Academic ethics: a systems approach to understanding misconduct and empowering change in the academy. Chapter 3. Bertram Gallant T, editor. Creating the ethical academy: a systems approach to understanding misconduct and empowering change in the academy. New York: Routledge.
• 42. Higher Education Academy JISC Academic Integrity Service (2011) Policy works: recommendations for reviewing policy to manage unacceptable academic practice in higher education. Available: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/academicintegrity/policy_works . Accessed 20 September 2013.
• 43. Bretag T (2013) Short-cut students: fostering academic integrity in students, Section 3.8 in Transparency International, Global Corruption Report: Education. Berlin: Transparency International.

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World’s standard in Plagiarism Detection

In a world overloaded with information, in times of various writing assistants, chatbots, and AI, originality and honest work have become even more valuable. Hence, scan for plagiarism is a compulsory step for approving any text, whether a university assignment or a journal article. But what is the universal standard for such originality checks, and how can one ensure avoiding plagiarism accusations?

How much plagiarism is allowed

Unfortunately, there is no clear guidance that sounds like “keep your plagiarism score under this benchmark, and you will be safe” unless “zero percent” can be counted as an answer. The thing is, different rules apply to different types of papers, and even these guidelines can vary depending on the educational institution. Moreover, the peculiarities of each text are of no less importance than the plagiarism score.

• Generally, 20% is the maximum plagiarism score that can be tolerated in publishing and education.
• But be careful: if 20% of the similarities detected are all found as a solid chunk of text copied from elsewhere, this extract is still considered plagiarised.
• Each educational institution has its own rules. Generally speaking, no more than 15-20% plagiarism is permitted in general academic writing and term papers, 20-25% in essays and research papers, and 5-15% in theses, dissertations, and published journals.
• Obviously, the best result is as little plagiarism as possible. However, one should pay attention to each case, as similarities can be found in some parts of the text that must be kept unchanged. There is also the notion of unintentional plagiarism , which is still a problem that has consequences but also requires educating students on preventing accidental copying.
• Using a plagiarism detector is the best way to uncover cheating attempts, avoid publishing the copied article, or check the text for authenticity before submitting.

World’s standard for plagiarism checking tools

A variety of plagiarism detectors is available for educators, students, publishers, and content creators. They may have different functions, but all deliver the similarity score, based on which one can draw conclusions regarding the text’s originality. Here are some points worth considering when opting for a similarity scanner.

• Try out the accuracy. Most modern tools offer a free check or a trial period, so you can try them out and decide whether the detector is tailored to your needs.
• Databases. In addition to scanning through the internet, some tools include specific databases, often focused on particular needs. For example, educators would benefit from the tool looking through academic works, ensuring students don’t copy from there, and publishers would appreciate a repository containing magazines and journals.
• Additional features. Using one tool for various purposes is handy instead of running the same text through a dozen checks. AI checker GPT , proofreading, authorship verification, and other tools help to save energy and time, leading to the best results.
• Integrations. Depending on the tasks you perform, check out how the plagiarism tool can complement your workflow. Teachers appreciate the integration into Learning Management Systems, and if you write in Google Docs, you will benefit from an add-on.

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What You Need to Know About the Long Fight for Educational Equity

Key takeaways from the 2024 phyllis l. kossoff lecture on education and policy, presented by dr. crystal r. sanders.

Just over 70 years after Brown v Board of Education, educational equity is still elusive, even more so after a rise in book bans and the end of race-based affirmative action in college admissions. Offering inspiration for the future by looking to the past, this year’s Phyllis L. Kossoff Lecture on Education and Policy, given by Dr. Crystal R. Sanders, draws connections between the historical struggle for high quality education and the current fight for fair and equitable schooling.

Established in 2007 by distinguished alum Phyllis L. Kossoff , the lecture series has provided a platform to further critical conversations on education, policy and research. For the 10th lecture, the first since Kossoff’s passing in 2022, Sanders, Associate Professor of African American Studies at Emory University College of Arts and Sciences, gave an illuminating lecture on an educational migration that occurred during the Jim Crow era. 

Her talk, “A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners and Graduate Education During the Era of Legal Segregation,” outlined the myriad difficulties Black Southerners faced as they sought out graduate education in often hostile environments. She focused specifically on “segregation scholarships,” a term originated by Sanders that describes state funding given to Black students to support their studies at Northern colleges and universities in order to maintain segregation in the South. 

Find takeaways from her lecture — a preview of her upcoming book, A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs — below.

(Photo courtesy of Sanders)

Many Black scholars, especially recipients of segregation scholarships, came to TC for their studies

It’s unknown precisely how many Black students came to TC on a segregation scholarship however, according to Sanders, the College’s summer continuing studies program was one of the most popular during that time period. Being a top graduate school of education with a history of accepting Black students certainly played a role, but Sanders cites proximity to Harlem and Mabel Carney’s, head of TC’s Rural Education Department from 1918 to 1941 , course on Negro Education as a major draw for scholars. 

Existing relationships with Southern educators combined with a willingness to accept Black students, Sanders noted, made TC a top choice for Black educators at the time. The work of professors like Arthur Linden, who ran summer courses for degree credit in Asheville, N.C., further expanded TC’s reach in the South and made higher education more accessible to Southern scholars.

Post-graduate students conducting a lab experiment, 1942. From left to right: J.S. Newcomer, A.E. Bell, Hiss Trondailer Jones and Samuel Massie. (Photo: FAS/OWI Photograph Collection, Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

Segregation Scholarships offered great opportunities, at a high cost

As explained by Sanders, during legal segregation, virtually all Southern schools with graduate programs refused to accept Black students, while Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) were often unable to offer graduate programs due to lack of funding from state legislatures. This forced Black students to journey North for their education which was often out of reach financially. To offset the costs, students leveraged the “separate but equal” doctrine, pushing Southern states to pay for Black students forced to study out of state. Sixteen Southern states started segregation scholarship programs between 1921 and 1948, despite these programs being deemed unconstitutional in 1938 .

Even though scholarships offered needed opportunity, “​​most of [the recipients] felt that there was a disadvantage professionally, [and] a disadvantage personally,” said Sanders. Professional degrees received out of state were met with undue scrutiny and created more hurdles, such as law students who had to study legal codes for two states at one time. Students also encountered racism in the North, struggled to find housing and dealt with extreme pressure to “behave properly” at their new school. The isolation students felt was compounded by their inability to visit home during their studies, as scholarships often didn’t cover basic living expenses, let alone travel expenses for a trip home.

Howard University students on campus, 1942 (Photo: Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Photograph Collection, Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)

Pushing Black scholars to study at Northern institutions created an enormous debt at Southern HBCUs

While they have a rich legacy, many HBCUs have crumbling buildings and small endowments . Consistent underfunding plays a major role in this decay — over the course of 33 years, 18 state-run land-grant HBCUs were underfunded by $12.3 billion , adjusted for inflation — as does the legacy of segregation scholarships. Rather than being paid by the state, scholarships were instead taken from the operating budget of Black colleges and universities. 

While individual scholarships weren’t substantial enough to cover each student’s needs, it still cost schools an incredible sum. By Sanders’s calculations, just one year of segregation scholarships cost Mississippi HBCUs $5.3 million dollars in today’s money and they ran scholarships for 20 years. Sanders argued that those funds could have been used to update infrastructure, attract faculty, and support new research. Instead, HBCUs had to foot the bill of segregationist policies. 

To address this lack, Sanders proposes that state governments give HBCUs “equity funding” by making an endowment contribution that matches the amount of money spent by each school on segregation scholarships, adjusted for inflation. “Nothing less is acceptable,” she said.

Despite the financial difficulties, isolation and racism scholars faced, they fought for their education out of a desire for a better life, Sanders explains. When they returned home with their hard-earned degrees, graduates set about “using their credentials and their training to create the type of world they want in these Southern communities,” said Sanders.

Sander’s forthcoming book, A Forgotten Migration: Black Southerners, Segregation Scholarships, and the Debt Owed to Public HBCUs , will be published in October of this year. 

— Sherri Gardner

Tags: Higher Education History of Education

Published Wednesday, May 22, 2024

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General election latest: Tories lose 'central allegation to beat Labour with' as police drop investigation into deputy leader Rayner

Greater Manchester Police will take no further action after an investigation into Labour's Angela Rayner. Meanwhile, the party's shadow chancellor has delivered her first big speech of the campaign - and Rishi Sunak continues to sing the virtues of his national service policy proposal.

Tuesday 28 May 2024 16:42, UK

• General Election 2024

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Election news

• No further action in Rayner police investigation
• Explained: What Starmer's deputy was being investigated for
• PM says national service 'will keep young people out of trouble'
• Labour's Reeves makes pitch to be next chancellor in major speech
• Live reporting by Faith Ridler  and (earlier)  Ben Bloch

Expert analysis

• Serena Barker-Singh: Tories lose key attack line with Rayner ruling
• Gurpreet Narwan: Farage already posing a big problem for Tories
• Rob Powell : Why latest Tory tax cut pledge is tricky for Labour

Election essentials

• Trackers: Who's leading polls? | Is PM keeping promises?
• Campaign Heritage: Memorable moments from elections gone by
• Follow Sky's politics podcasts: Electoral Dysfunction | Politics At Jack And Sam's
• Read more: What happens next? | Which MPs are standing down? | Key seats to watch | How to register to vote | What counts as voter ID? | Check if your constituency's changing | Sky's coverage plans

Hot on the heels of Greater Manchester Police ending its investigation into the deputy Labour leader's old housing arrangements, the relevant local council, Stockport, has come to the same conclusion.

A statement said: "Stockport Council has reviewed and responded to all correspondence relating to this matter, including information received from Greater Manchester Police who have concluded that no further police action will be taken. 

"We have also concluded that no further action will be taken on behalf of the council."

If you need a reminder on what the investigation was all about, see our previous post.

As we just reported, police have ended their investigation into Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner.

If you need a reminder, the issue had centred on what house Ms Rayner used as her primary address 10 years ago.

Ms Rayner said it was an ex-council house she used to own on Vicarage Road in Stockport, which she bought in 2007.

But she faced claims she lived primarily at her then husband's address in Lowndes Lane, just over a mile away.

The pair married in 2010 and have two children together.

Why did the claims matter?

The claims she lived mainly at her ex-husband's house mattered because she was registered to vote at the Vicarage Road address.

Under electoral rules, voters must register at their permanent home address, and there are penalties for providing false information when registering to vote.

Then there is the issue of whether she paid the right amount of tax when she sold her house.

She sold the Vicarage Road house in 2015 for £127,500, having bought it at a 25% discount through the "right-to-buy" scheme for £79,000 in 2007.

If it was her primary address, as she has claimed, she would not have had to pay capital gains tax on the £48,500 profit.

But if she had moved to Lowndes Lane, she would have had to pay up.

Tax experts have said if Ms Rayner did owe tax, the amount could be in the region of £1,500.

She had vowed to stand down if she was found to have done anything wrong.

Labour have responded to news that police have ended their investigation into the party's deputy leader, Angela Rayner.

A spokesperson said she "cooperated fully" throughout and "has always been clear that she was not liable for capital gains tax on the sale of the home she owned before she was an MP".

"She was properly registered to vote, and paid the appropriate council tax. She took expert tax and legal advice which confirms this," they added.

"This draws a line under the matter."

Our political correspondent Serena Barker-Singh is reacting to news that Greater Manchester Police will take no further action relating to Angela Rayner's former living arrangements.

She said: "There were many allegations towards Angela Rayner over a home that she owned in Stockport in 2015, but police were only investigating one part of it - and that was over electoral law."

In short, this is whether she had registered the address where she was living.

But Serena explains: "And there's a separate allegation that a Tory MP was trying to make over whether she had paid capital gains tax.

"Now, this was because while she owned a property in Stockport, there were questions over whether she lived and used that as her primary address."

Greater Manchester Police have said today that "no further police action will be taken".

Serena says: "The Tories have been making hay of this, and have been doing so for a long time.

"I think Labour will be pleased that so early in the election they will no longer have that central allegation to beat Labour with."

We've just got word from Greater Manchester Police on its investigation into Angela Rayner's former living arrangements.

The force has said "no further action will be taken" against the deputy Labour leader.

A spokesperson said it came to the decision after a "thorough, carefully considered and proportionate investigation".

"The investigation originated from complaints made by Mr James Daly MP directly to GMP," they added.

Mr Daly is the vice chair of the Conservative Party.

"Subsequent further contact with GMP by members of the public, and claims made by individuals featured in media reporting, indicated a strong public interest in the need for allegations to be investigated," the spokesperson continued.

"Matters involving council tax and personal tax do not fall into the jurisdiction of policing."

"GMP has liaised with Stockport Council and information about our investigation has been shared with them. 

"Details of our investigation have also been shared with His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC)."

Next, Rishi Sunak is asked about news that 121 businesses have thrown their support behind Labour ahead of the general election.

He says: "Well I'm not sure what they think they are backing, because Labour haven't said what they would do differently for businesses in our country.

"But we can look at what they are doing in Labour-run Wales, where they are increasing taxes for small businesses, in contrast to what we are doing in England.

"So if you're a typical pub in Wales, your business rates bill just more than doubled as a result of the actions of the Welsh Labour government."

Mr Sunak adds that Labour want to introduce "French-style union laws" to the UK, with regulations that he says will "cost jobs and damage our economy".

You can read more on the businesses backing Labour here:

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak today claimed pensioners will "pay tax under Labour" as his party unveiled their triple-lock plus plans.

This would see a pensioner's allowance rise in line with either average earnings, inflation or by 2.5% - whichever is higher - from next April, echoing the rules on annual state pension increases.

Speaking to reporters in the East Midlands, he was asked why he decided to stop an effective tax rise on pensioners - but allowed one to go ahead on working age people.

Has Mr Sunak given up on young voters?

"What I believe is that if you work hard all your life, you should have dignity in retirement - that's why we've protected the triple lock, which is going up by £900 this year for pensioners," he said.

"But today what we've announced is the triple lock plus. We're going to increase the personal allowance for pensioners, delivering a tax cut worth around £100 to millions of pensioners, demonstrating our commitment to them."

'Pensioners will pay more tax under Labour'

The prime minister says that, in contrast, the Labour Party "have said they oppose that policy".

"Which means pensioners will be paying tax under any future Labour government, and that's a clear choice on offer at this election."

He calls this a tax cut, and is asked if this is him admitting that a decision to freeze tax thresholds was a tax rise.

"I think most people recognise that the country has been through an extraordinary amount - the pandemic, and then the war in Ukraine - both of which meant that the government stepped in to support people."

Mr Sunak says that this called for "difficult decisions".

However, he says that the Tories have now been able to "cut people's taxes", pointing to two national insurance cuts in the last year.

Lord Cameron was asked by broadcasters if he is disappointed that some Tory MPs and candidates have publicly criticised Rishi Sunak's national service plans.

The ex-PM replied that it's a "really bold decision" to propose the plan, and says he "fully" supports it.

"In many ways, it's actually fired up this election campaign," he said, and added it shows a "choice" between Mr Sunak with a "clear plan" making "bold decisions", and Sir Keir Starmer with "absolutely no plan at all".

He also hit out at the Labour leader's pitch that "change" is "stability", characterising the assertion as "like sunshine for being cold or rain to stay dry".

Pushed on if the PM should keep expecting criticism of bold ideas, Lord Cameron replied: "What he should do is keep coming up with the bold plans and the bold ideas.

"In the end, elections are not a referendum on the government - they're a choice, and you can see a real choice opening up."

Lord Cameron might be on the campaign trail today, but he remains foreign secretary until the election at least.

To that end, he was asked by broadcasters for his reaction to the Israeli air strike in Rafah that saw many civilians killed, and the arrest warrants being sought by a prosecutor at the International Criminal Court for Israeli and Hamas leaders.

He replied that what happened "really did look very, very concerning, very worrying, and so we're asking for that to be investigated rapidly".

"The Israelis have already said it was a tragic mistake, but we want to see that properly investigated."

He said he wants to see a pause in fighting, which "has been offered by the Israelis".

The aim is to get hostages out, aid in, and then that can become a "permanent, sustainable ceasefire".

Asked if he agrees with calls to recognise Palestine as a state immediately, he said he wants to see that as part of a two-state solution - "a secure Israel next to a secure, democratic Palestine".

"Recognition of course will come, but it shouldn't come at the start of this process. It doesn't have to wait until right at the end, but it should be part of bringing about a two-state solution."

You can get the latest on war in the Middle East in our dedicated blog:

The Conservative Policy's big policy announcement today is promising to cut taxes for pensioners by creating a new "age-related" tax-free allowance - dubbed "triple lock plus".

Currently, people can receive £12,570 a year of their pensions before they start paying income tax on them - the same figure as the personal allowance for those who work.

But if the party wins the next election, a pensioner's allowance would rise in line with either average earnings, inflation or by 2.5% - whichever is higher - from next April.

Lord Cameron has been on the campaign trail today, and was asked by broadcasters if Rishi Sunak is having to undo the damage he caused after he scrapped the special thresholds for pensions in 2014 when he was PM.

'Clear choice has opened up'

The now foreign secretary said he put in place the triple lock on pensions, which "has actually seen real increases for pensioners, real gains".

He went on: "What we're adding now is the triple lock plus - we're saying that if you have a pension which is rising, it's never going to be subject to tax."

He said a "real, clear choice has opened up between doing right by the pensioners under the Conservatives, or having the retirement tax under Labour", because they have not committed to matching that pledge.

But Lord Cameron did not answer whether Mr Sunak is undoing the damage he did as PM.

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