The Internet Plagiarism Explosion

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A great deal has been published in the media about the "explosion" of Internet plagiarism among high school and college students. Because the Internet is so young, there have been few studies conducted on the extent of Internet plagiarism. However, existing studies do show that the Internet is an extremely popular tool students use to cheat on written assignments. In any group of students, some will choose the path of academic dishonesty and copy the words or ideas of another person without giving credit to the author. The advent of the Internet has opened new ways for students to plagiarize written material. Not only can students copy material from individual Web sites, but they can use an online paper mill to pay for and receive an entire paper written by someone else.

Educators are interested in the extent of Internet plagiarism, why some students plagiarize using the Internet, and what they can do to prevent students from cheating when they use online resources. I will attempt to address these concerns in this paper.

The Center for Academic Integrity based at Duke University studies issues of academic integrity including trends in cheating and plagiarism across the United States. Its studies show that Internet plagiarism is a widespread problem among high school and college students. There are several types of Internet plagiarism. The most common way for a student to plagiarize material from the Internet involves copying material from a variety of independent Web sites and compiling them into an "original" document. A less common type involves a student obtaining a paper from a paper mill. There are now thousands of paper mills on the World Wide Web offering a variety of services. Some, such as www.realpapers.com, offer ...

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...m. Los Angeles Times, 1. Retrieved October 28, 2001, from LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe database.

Hricko, M. (1998). Internet plagiarism: Strategies to deter academic misconduct. Retrieved October 28, 2001 from the Mid-South Instructional Technology Conference Web site: http://www.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed98/mhricko.html

Kleiner, C., Lord, M. & Faber, L. (1999, November 22). The great term-paper buying caper. U.S. News & World Report, 127 (20), 63. Retrieved October 28, 2001 from LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe database.

Niels, G. J. (1996). Academic practices, school culture and cheating behavior. Retrieved October 28, 2001 from: http://james.hawken.edu/odris/cheating/cheating.html

Walker, W. (2001, September 3). Teachers fight back against 'rampant' cyber-cheating. Toronto Star, A07. Retrieved October 28, 2001, from LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe database.

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