The Unley 10 Point Counter Plagiarism Strategy

Using Word

Consultancy

This site is under development (Sept, 2004) and resources are being added regularly. Please bookmark and revisit. It reflects the work my colleagues and I have been doing at Unley High School in South Australia and has, in part, been developed to share with teachers doing the Learning and Teaching with the Internet course.

Feedback would be appreciated to assist the on-going development of this resource. (link at foot of page)

Central to this project is a belief the countering plagiarism is far more than teaching citation and using search engines to catch erring students. It is about effective teaching and changing the prevailing culture within educational institutions. In order to achieve this I believe that there are 10 things teachers need to focus on. These are noted below.


	1 focus on question setting develop a focus on setting questions requiring higher order thinking (and for which ready made answers are unlikely to be available)
	2 be explicit about skills teach students research skills such as how to analyse questions, break main tasks down into the sub questions required to frame an answer, evaluate resources, paraphrase and synthesise
	3 make student thinking visible teach the use of Word’s outline function as an ‘ideas processor’ require students to develop concept maps and/or detailed outlines to plan their responses and discuss this with them
	4 value process as well as product demonstrate that you value the process as well as the product by being explicit about processes. Show you are serious by awarding marks for research notes, developed outlines, drafts and proper referencing
	5 use one referencing system adopt a single referencing system that every student in every subject should understand and be expected to use	UHS referencing handout (PDF) Referencing Powerpoint
	6 consider linguistic evidence increase your awareness of the linguistic markers that are the ‘smoking gun’ of plagiarism
	7 know your students’ abilities encourage the use of occasional tasks done in class under test conditions so you know what a student’s unaided writing is like
	8 develop ethical intelligence discuss the issues of plagiarism and intellectual property. Develop self-assessment skills, ethical intelligence, moral imagination and deep personal pride
	9 search strategies for ‘borrowings’ have a range of search strategies available to help detect ‘borrowings’	examples to search for
	10 discuss suspect pieces if you do find a suspect piece you need to approach the student strategically. The goal is to keep the student engaged in learning.

	References and Useful links

Test your skill - detecting plagiarism with search engines
• Look for inconsistencies in the examples below and choose 5~10 words you suspect are not student writing.
• Enter or paste this suspect phrase into a search engine. Either enclose the entire phrase within double quotes (“…”) or enter into the phrase search box on the advanced search page.
• Does it make any difference?
• Try different search engines. Are the results any different?
Example A
‘There is lots and lots of special foods in the region and 1 of the particular main special foods of the region I am talking about and is very common to be found in their is the black truffle and that is recognizable by its strong wild perfume. Its development requires 3 essential elements : earth rich in limestone, a Mediterranean climate and a welcoming tree (generally oak). It is collected during winter at the feet of oak trees with the help of a well-trained dog. The "truffle hound" scratches the earth to show where the truffle is hidden, leaving its owner to free the "Black Diamond" with a special hook called a "Faiji". They can sells those in truffle markets at times during the year perhaps when the turists is their to buy it.’
Example B
‘Computer chairs are among the most abundantly used article of office furniture to date (along side desks and shelving units). With more and more jobs involving computers arise so does the demand for an ergonomic computer chair.’
‘…. Backrest angle adjustability allows the chair to support different degrees of recline, which in turn transfers some upper-body weight to the chair backrest and lightens the load on the lower back’s intervertebral discs.

Links to the homepage of this website is permitted for educational purposes.

Feedback and constructive comments would be appreciated.