Every few news cycles, a politician, historian, journalist, or other prominent figure is accused of plagiarism. These spotlight events provide excellent opportunities to open a discussion about academic integrity with your students. If your school does not already have a policy in place for academic integrity, it can be an opportune time to advocate for one with your administration and faculty.

Creating plagiarism-proof assignments

An academic integrity policy can provide best practice guidelines to help teachers create assignments that reduce the risk of plagiarism. Breaking a research project into parts and evaluating progressive steps along the way helps students learn—and learn from—each step in the research process (McKenzie). This segmented approach also provides a safeguard against plagiarism—most of the cases of plagiarism I have seen occur when an independent research paper is due at the end of the term. It is very easy for a student to put off these long-term assignments to the last minute, and then realize too late that they can’t pull it off in time. If the teacher evaluates a source list, research notes, and a topic sentence outline or rough draft throughout the research project, then the final paper is more likely to be the student’s original work. It would be more trouble for a student to “reverse-engineer” research notes, outlines, and drafts than it would be to take the notes from actual sources (Harris).

If teachers are reluctant to add yet another assessment to a time-consuming assignment, the librarian might offer to review the works cited list or notecards. (NoodleBib makes this process paperless through the Share List feature—more on NoodleBib later). Reinforcement of the citation rules is key to learning how to properly cite. Require work cited lists for student-created bulletin boards, poster presentations, and oral reports. A consistent emphasis on citing shows students that academic integrity is an intellectual value in your school community.

When teachers and librarians collaborate on research assignments, there is a coherent message about academic integrity across all academic departments. This united approach can preempt the problem that occurs when the history department expects that the English department has academic integrity instruction covered. The librarian is ideally situated to make sure that all students are taught proper citation skills for each research project. Some students don’t necessarily remember that the skills they learned while writing their 10^th grade English paper also apply in 11^th grade American History.

Repeating citation instruction for each project is a good thing, and allows the librarian to build beyond the basic mechanics. Instruction in academic integrity goes far beyond how to properly format a works cited list. After all, NoodleBib and other web-based bibliography makers have freed us from having to teach how to format a hanging indent, and have enabled us to focus more on the concept and ethical basis of how and why to cite sources.

As a capstone to a long research paper, ask students to turn in a brief reflection of the research and writing process. Prompt them by asking what mistakes they made, what worked well, and what they learned about their own work habits. At my school, this reflection activity is most effective with our 9^th grade students, who participate in a year-long Computer Connections class that is taught through the library and technology department. This self-evaluation exercise is both a metalearning opportunity for the students (Harris), as well as a chance for both the teacher and the librarian to note changes or clarifications in the assignment for the future.

About NoodleBib

Use citation tools such as NoodleBib to teach students to keep track of sources and to take notes online while they read and use the sources. Collecting citations while taking notes saves time and makes it less likely for plagiarism to occur in the end product. NoodleBib’s Note Card feature is a color-coded form with spaces for quotations, paragraphs, and “my ideas.” These three options prompt students to consider how the note taking stage may affect the final paper, rather than saving this thought process until they’re formatting the final version of the paper. Fatigue sets in and careless mistakes are likely to occur, when deadlines loom large. By asking students to distinguish between a writer’s words and ideas and their own, NoodleBib’s notecards teach good note taking habits. Color-coding can teach students to recognize the “fresh thinking” in their own reactions to something they have read (McKenzie). In addition, I have never had a student ask me “what’s the point?” of the NoodleBib notecards the way they do for traditional index card. Index cards may be the way you and the teachers at your school learned to take notes for a paper, but for many digital natives, traditional index cards are a clumsy and antiquated system. In fact, some students print out digital notes and tape them to paper cards just to meet the requirements of the assignment. Another benefit: Noodle Bib’s notecards never get lost at the bottom of a bookbag or locker.

Dealing with Plagiarism

An academic integrity policy should include guidelines for how to handle a case of plagiarism should one occur. In our school, the librarian chairs the academic integrity committee. If a teacher suspects plagiarism, she brings the work in question to the librarian, who aids the teacher to search for suspect passages in online and print sources. If plagiarism is found, then the teacher will ask the student about the work. The teacher’s findings will be presented, along with the evidence of plagiarism, to the academic integrity committee, which consists of the librarian, the dean of students, and a teacher from another academic department. A learning specialist is also brought into the meeting if the student has a learning plan.

The academic integrity committee must determine the intent of the student when plagiarism is found. If the plagiarism was the intentional act of a student who, because of poor planning and time mismanagement, ran out of time and turned in writing poached from a website, then the case is referred for disciplinary action. If the plagiarism is the result of a student not understanding that paraphrased words and ideas still require citation, then the student is offered a chance at a re-write, along with a remedial session with the librarian to go over citation rules. Plagiarism can be a complex issue. Remember those people who make the headlines from time to time? Very often those cases are accidental plagiarism. Think about how hard it can be for a young teenager to be able to discern the difference between “common knowledge” and facts or opinions that must be cited.

Librarians as Leaders

If your school has an Honor Code or a Code of Conduct, the values found there can be a very good foundation for an Academic Integrity Policy. Honor codes stress honesty, community, and social responsibility, and clarify the rights and responsibilities of all members of the school community (Abilock). Librarians should be leaders as their schools begin to think about how to revamp these codes of conduct for the 21^st century. Debbie Abilock, Co-founder and VP of NoodleTools, has a sample policy template that may help guide the process in your community.

Works Cited

Abilock, Debbie. “Template for a Plagiarism Policy.” NoodleTools. 28 June 2007.
6 Apr. 2008 <http://www.noodletools.com/debbie/ethical/policytemplate.html>.

Harris, Robert. “Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers.” Virtual Salt.
17 Nov. 2004. 5 Mar. 2007 <http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm>.

McKenzie, Jamie. “The New Plagiarism: Seven Antidotes to Prevent Highway Robbery in an Electronic Age.” From Now On 7.8 (May 1998). 5 Mar. 2007 <http://fno.org/may98/cov98may.html>.