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“Should It Be Considered Plagiarism?” Student Perceptions of Complex Citation Issues

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Abstract

Most research on student plagiarism defines the concept very narrowly or with much ambiguity. Many studies focus on plagiarism involving large swaths of text copied and pasted from unattributed sources, a type of plagiarism that the overwhelming majority of students seem to have little trouble identifying. Other studies rely on ambiguous definitions, assuming students understand what the term means and requesting that they self-report how well they understand the concept. This study attempts to avoid these problems by examining student perceptions of more complex citation issues. We presented 240 students with a series of examples, asked them to indicate whether or not each should be considered plagiarism, and followed up with a series of demographic and attitudinal questions. The examples fell within the spectrum of inadequate citation, patchwriting, and the reuse of other people’s ideas. Half were excerpted from publicized cases of academic plagiarism, and half were modified from other sources. Our findings indicated that students shared a very strong agreement that near verbatim copy and paste and patchwriting should be considered plagiarism, but that they were much more conflicted regarding the reuse of ideas. Additionally, this study found significant correlation between self-reported confidence in their understanding and the identification of more complex cases as plagiarism, but this study found little correlation between academic class status or exposure to plagiarism detection software and perceptions of plagiarism. The latter finding goes against a prevailing sentiment in the academic literature that the ability to recognize plagiarism is inherently linked to academic literacy. Overall, our findings indicate that more pedagogical emphasis may need to be placed on complex forms of plagiarism.

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Notes

  1. While various terms are used in the academic literature to refer to different kinds of plagiarism, this study defines mere inadequate citation as referencing an original source but in an ambiguous way that does not clearly indicate what, exactly, is taken from the source. This study follows Howard et al. (2010) in their definition of patchwriting cited above. By “reuse of others’ ideas alone” this study refers to replicating concepts or argumentative structures with minimal repetition of the source text.

  2. The original source is Keddy et al. (2009).

  3. The original source is Bradford and Weitz (2009). The potential plagiarism is from Bobot (2010).

  4. The original source is from Peterson and Davis (1975). The potential plagiarism is from Carney (1979).

  5. Original source and potential plagiarism from Moore et al. (2010). Reused by permission.

  6. Original source and potential plagiarism from “What constitutes plagiarism?” (2015). Reused by permission.

  7. The original source is Morrow (1986). The potential plagiarism is from Twitchell (2002).

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to John Rachal, Tisha Zelner, Michael Salda and James T. Johnson for their assistance. Funding support for the gift card received from the Department of Philosophy and Religion at The University of Southern Mississippi.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forrest County Center, Pearl River Community College, 5448 US 49 South, #20, Hattiesburg, MS, 39401, USA

    Dan Childers

  2. The University of Southern Mississippi, 118 College Drive, #5116, Hattiesburg, MS, 39406-0001, USA

    Sam Bruton

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Correspondence to Dan Childers.

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Childers, D., Bruton, S. “Should It Be Considered Plagiarism?” Student Perceptions of Complex Citation Issues. J Acad Ethics 14, 1–17 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-015-9250-6

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