As a teacher, it is your responsibility to inform your students about plagiarism and its potential consequences. It is also largely up to you to assess whether a student paper shows signs that all or parts of it were not written by the student him or herself. The following information is intended to assist you in detecting plagiarism and taking steps to prevent it.

Telltale signs of plagiarism

• Changes in style, e.g. particularly sophisticated language being used in individual sections

• Spelling and grammar mistakes that abound in some parts of the paper

• Changes in citation style within the paper

• Insufficient citations, for instance if extended sections of text do not cite any sources

• The paper only cites “old” literature published before a certain year

In the classroom

There are many things you can do in the classroom to prevent plagiarism. Here are some suggestions.

Talk about plagiarism: You can address the topic at the beginning of your course and make it clear to your students that you, as the teacher, are aware of the various possibilities for committing academic fraud that exist, e.g. by telling them that you are familiar with commonly used plagiarism databases.

Clearly communicate your expectations: In many cases, it is first and foremost the quality of a paper that matters, and not so much its length. We recommend that you clearly explain to your students what you expect from their written work and encourage them to ask if anything is unclear. This will reduce students’ fear of exaggerated expectations placed on their work and help to prevent plagiarism committed by students who feel they are unable to deliver what is expected from them.

Changing your thesis topic suggestions: You can help to prevent plagiarism by changing your thesis topic suggestions every semester. Asking the students to hand in short summaries of key aspects or a mandatory chapter in which they reflect upon their topic at an early stage in the writing process helps to prevent them from simply copying content from other sources.

Turning portfolios into seminar papers: Another way of making it more difficult for students to commit plagiarism is to have them prepare process portfolios for their written assignments. Process portfolios tend to support the learning process better than conventional seminar papers. They include a documentation of all the steps involved in the preparation of a paper (handing in a proposal, tables of contents with commentaries, critical assessments of sources used, etc.).

Further reading

Click on the following link for further information and suggestions related to plagiarism: