OFF THE SHELF W. D. McIntyre Library • www.uwec.edu/library/ots/otshmpg.html • April 2003, Number 57 In Your Own Words: IN THIS ISSUE: Using Information AROUND THE LIBRARY Literacy Skills to Detect Faculty/Staff and Prevent Plagiarism Display Case ....................... 3 National Library Week ........ 3 by Jill Markgraf, [email protected] View From the lagiarism is a growing problem in this To avoid ambiguities and misunderstand- Third Floor ........................... 4 day and age when the proliferation of ing, give students your definition of plagia- P online information makes cutting and rism. Provide examples. Consider having them VIRTUAL LIBRARY pasting the words of someone else so easy. “It’s take an online quiz to help them understand mine for the taking” seems to be an increasingly what it is. Examples of online quizzes are: Database News ...................... 5 prevalent attitude in this age of videotaping, CD ■ Fricke, Ted. “What is Plagiarism at Indiana Finding Databases ................ 5 burning, cutting and pasting, and downloading. University?” http://education.indiana.edu/ Lexis-Nexis Academic .......... 6 The Internet and technological advances make ~frick/plagiarism/index2.html QuestionPoint it easier than ever for students to wittingly or ■ Empire State College http://www.esc.edu/ Reference Chat ................... 8 unwittingly plagiarize, and faculty members esconline/across_esc/library.nsf/ face the increasing burden of defining it, discour- wholeshortlinks2/Academic+Integrity, click Academic & Career aging it, detecting it and dealing with it. The li- on “Take this Quick Quiz.” Services Titles ..................... 8 brary can help. MyLibrary ............................... 9 Discourage it Introducing ILLiad ............... 9 Define it Any instructor who has had to confront pla- Private ID ................................ 9 The first step in combating plagiarism is defin- giarism can attest to the fact that it is both time- ing it. In the 2002 Final Report of the Project Wind- consuming and unpleasant. The most effective Eau, Cronje, et al. find that UW-Eau Claire way to deal with plagiarism is to prevent it. NEW @ YOUR LIBRARY faculty have varying opinions on the definition Some prevention methods include: Could That be of plagiarism. While “all faculty believed that ■ integrating research and citing skills into THE Barbara Bush ........... 10 using another’s ideas without any attribu- your curriculum. Students who do not know tions...constitutes plagiarism,”1 there is less how to conduct research or properly cite Science.gov Replaces agreement on the question of whether or not sources may intentionally or unintentionally PubSCIENCE .................... 11 intent must be present to warrant the label of plagiarize. Contact the library to schedule in- American Indian Studies .. 11 plagiarism. According to Plagiarism.org, pla- formation literacy instruction for your stu- Homeland Security ............. 12 giarism is “the improper use, or failure to at- dents. Such classes can include topics such Mapping and Census tribute, another person’s writing or ideas as selecting a research topic, using the library (intellectual property). It can be as subtle as the catalog, finding journal articles, identifying Documents ......................... 13 inadvertent neglect to include quotes or refer- scholarly journals, evaluating websites, cit- ences when citing another source or as blatantly ing documents and more. Instruction can be STAFF NEWS ....................... 14 unethical as knowingly copying an entire pa- tailored to meet the specific needs of your per verbatim and claiming it as your own course and your students. work.”2 However, the Council of Writing Pro- ■ designing assignments that can be sup- IN BRIEF gram Administrators distinguishes between: ported by library resources available to your Special Collections 1. submitting someone else’s text as one’s students. Students frustrated by an assign- Extended Hours ................ 14 own or attempting to blur the line between ment that seems undoable or unrealistic may Display Cases ....................... 14 one’s own ideas or words and those bor- be tempted to plagiarize. McIntyre librarians rowed from another source, and are happy to assist you in ensuring that li- 2. carelessly or inadequately citing ideas and brary materials can support your assignment. 3 words borrowed from another source. continued on page 2 In Your Own Words continued from page 1 that simultaneously searches several search that you leave stop words out of your ■ requiring evidence of steps in the re- engines). When using these search engines, search. For example, if you are looking for search and writing process such as out- become familiar with their advanced search the phrase, “roses are red” you would type lines, meetings to discuss progress, methods. For example, many search en- in roses red. Librarians are happy to help you rough drafts, bibliographies, and search gines-including Google-will search for an with search techniques for effectively using strategies. Librarians can help your stu- exact phrase if you put two or more words databases in your field. dents develop search strategies. Not only in quotation marks. Remember that no Other library resources you may find use- do you have a chance to monitor progress, single search engine covers the entire Web. ful in tracking down plagiarized sources in- but you also help your students avoid the In fact, search engines cover only a small clude: procrastination trap, which can result in fraction of what is available on the Web, and ■ The Voyager online catalog: to see if plagiarism as an act of desperation. that searchable content is sometimes re- McIntyre Library has the books listed on ■ being familiar with students’ writing ca- ferred to as the surface Web. More expan- your student’s bibliography pabilities and style through in-class or sive portions of the Web not reached by ■ The Periodicals List: to see if McIntyre Li- preliminary writing assignments. search engines are referred to as the deep brary carries the journal articles listed on ■ making assignments specific or requir- Web. The deep Web includes information ing that they have some personal rel- your student’s bibliography in non-text formats such as software, graph- ■ evance to the students. Papers meeting ics, multimedia or pdf files. It also comprises Full text reference databases (listed at your specific requirements will be more information in web-based databases, such http://lib1.uwec.edu/reference.asp), difficult for students to find from another as Amazon.com, the library online catalog, such as: source such as an online paper mill. or any of the library’s web-based propri- • Bowker’s Books in Print: book reviews ■ letting your students know that you are etary databases. No silver bullet exists that • Contemporary Authors: author biogra- aware of online paper mills, and that the can single-handedly search the entire deep phies papers found there are often of poor Web, though there are some sites, such as • CQ Research: reports on current, con- quality. Two good sites for finding online Completeplanet.com or Invisibleweb.com, troversial issues term paper mills are: that provide extensive directories or collec- • Encyclopedia Britannica Online •Google Web Directory Academic tions of deep Web databases. • MagillOnLiterature: critical analyses Papers, Fee-based and free Library databases that contain full text ar- and plot summaries http://directory.google.com/Top/ ticles from which text could easily be cut • Wilson Biographies Plus Reference/Education/Products_and_ and pasted into a student paper are temp- Services/Academic_Papers/ ting plagiarism targets. To find full text da- Commercial Plagiarism • Coastal Carolina University, Kimbel tabases in a given field, start with the Detection Services Library-List of Internet Paper Mills Databases by Discipline (Core & More) link http://www.coastal.edu/library/ from the library homepage. Most students Several commercial plagiarism detection mills2.htm have some familiarity with the EBSCOhost services and software products exist, and ■ Telling your students about the repercus- Academic Search Elite database. It covers a they receive mixed reviews. Two such ser- sions of plagiarism. Students need to broad range of subject areas and includes vices, PlagiServe.com and EduTie.com, know not only what plagiarism is, but also many full text articles, making it a poten- have raised concerns about possible ties to that it is not tolerated by you or by the tially attractive database from which to pla- online term paper sellers.4 institution. giarize. Each database has its own search Turnitin.com is a popular commercial interface, and you will want to figure out prevention and detection service whereby Detect it how to search the full text of articles for the student papers are submitted to and com- Even when you’ve done all that you can to database you’re using. EBSCOhost data- pared against the content of an ever-grow- discourage plagiarism, you may not be able bases, for example, require that you click a ing database, and an “originality report” is to eliminate it completely. Some clues that checkbox to include full text in your search. sent to the instructor. In addition to check- may cause you to suspect plagiarism include: LexisNexis requires that you select “full ing against its own database and websites, ■ inconsistencies in writing style, format, text” from a drop down menu. WilsonWeb Turnitin also checks against