The Internet Plagiarism Problem

Internet plagiarism is a rapidly increasing problem in our secondary and post-secondary schools. A 2003 study organized by Rutgers University found that 38% of collegians admitted to cut-and-paste plagiarism using the Internet in the past year.* This is a huge increase from the 10% who admitted to the behavior in a similar study two years before.* Institutions and professors are increasingly aware of the problem and are asking for help.

Who Plagiarizes and Why?

Writers may plagiarize for a variety of reasons but those that plagiarize can generally be put into one of three categories:

1. The accidental plagiarist is one who either does not understand plagiarism or makes a mistake in quoting, citing, or paraphrasing.
2. The casual plagiarist is one who knows that it is wrong to plagiarize but who does it anyway due to poor planning, disorganization, or procrastination.
3. The committed plagiarist is one who intends, with forethought, to cheat by stealing others words and/or ideas. This is the type of plagiarist who might purchase a paper from a paper mill.

Education and awareness programs are important to address all three categories.

Education alone, however, cannot fully address the problem. Detection technology has been available for some years and is important in catching the committed plagiarist and may deter some casual plagiarists. A third element is needed, however, to encourage and support proper research practices—Development.

The Rutgers study indicates that 20% of faculty use detection software like Turnitin.com to help catch offenders.* Turnitin.com boasts a peak daily number of papers submitted of 20,000.** Unfortunately, as the increasing numbers of plagiarists indicate, fear of being caught does not always work effectively as a deterrent. Since prevention is more desirable than policing, institutions are attempting to stem the tide through education and academic integrity awareness programs. But what are needed are tools to help students do the right thing in the first place. This is where the Development area of Research Process Automation comes in.

What is Research Process Automation?

Research Process Automation (RPA) encompasses technologies that support one or more of the components of the Research Process which are education, research, writing, citation, submission, review, and publication. PowerResearcher™ is the first such tool on the market and the only one that supports all seven of the Research Process components. The company that developed PowerResearcher, Uniting Networks, Inc. (UNI), founded the RPA concept. For plagiarism reduction, the basic idea is that if conducting research and citing sources the correct way is quick and easy, the temptation to plagiarize is removed or greatly reduced. The graphic below shows the variety of tools that fall into the RPA domain and which Research Process areas they support.

How can RPA and PowerResearcher prevent or reduce plagiarism?

UNI focus groups and interviews with educators indicate that most plagiarism is due to lack of knowledge, poor planning, disorganization, or procrastination. The Rutgers study supports this observation in its finding that less than 5% of students said they turned in a paper or assignment obtained wholly from a website or term paper mill. PowerResearcher helps prevent accidental plagiarism by providing automatic source tracking, logging, and organization tools. As for intentional plagiarism, every offender weighs the risk versus reward. When the manual, time consuming tasks involved in research, writing, and attribution are largely automated, the risk-reward equation changes. The risk of plagiarizing far outweighs the reward. When combined with the existing education and awareness programs of colleges and universities, RPA can make a huge impact in reducing plagiarism.

Additional Reading

Read our paper on the impact of technology on plagiarism prevention and detection which will be presented at the Joint Information Systems Committee Plagiarism Advisory Service conference on plagiarism in June, 2004 at the University of Northumbria, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

* from Rutgers Media Relations. http://ur.rutgers.edu/medrel/viewArticle.html?ArticleID=3408
** from Turnitin.com. About Us. http://www.turnitin.com/static/about_us/

Citation in MLA format:
Beasley, J. Douglas. "Plagiarism Reduction with Research Process Automation" Uniting Networks Incorporated Date Accessed <http://www.powerresearcher.com/plagiarism_reduce.html>.

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