2008 Woodie Awards
RSSInternet plagiarism on the rise in colleges
By Michelle De Leon
Issue date: 11/12/07 Section: News
With the Internet slowly becoming a prominent feature of higher education, one area has caught the attention of both students and academics: Plagiarism.
A Sept. 3, 2003, article in The New York Times, "A Campus Fad That's Being Copied: Internet Plagiarism," surveyed students on 23 college campuses and found that 38 percent of undergraduate students said they had committed "cut and paste" plagiarism one or more times in the last year. About half of these students also said they did not consider this type of plagiarism a form of cheating.
The article said students feel the need to cheat because of "the intense competition to get into graduate school, and land the top jobs." This pressure has always existed for college students, but the easy access to the Internet has provided more opportunities to plagiarize.
Students also have access to online term paper mills, such as EssaysFree.com, SchoolSucks.com, AcademicTermpapers.com and Aplustermpapers.com. These Web sites have made a profit by making pre-written essays available for purchase. Some also offer writers who will produce custom papers on any subject requested.
The Web site AcademicTermpapers.com has a warning that "all reports are copyrighted by Academic Term Papers and are sold for research and reference purposes only and may not be submitted either in whole or in part for academic credit." However, once sold, there is no way for the Web site to assure the paper it sold to a student will not be submitted to a professor.
Alan Abeel, '09, said he does not agree with plagiarism.
"Plagiarism is not only disrespectful, but it's an act of pure laziness," Abeel said. "Just do your own work. Why should anyone receive credit for work done by someone else?"
In an e-mail interview, Dean of Students Chris Mulvihill said the office of student conduct deals with students who are caught cheating.
"Each case is handled individually," Mulvihill said, "but I have had cases where homework assignments that are worth less than one percent of the course and were fraudulent resulted in the student failing the course and receiving probation. In short, the weight of the assignment does not determine the sanctions imposed."
A Sept. 3, 2003, article in The New York Times, "A Campus Fad That's Being Copied: Internet Plagiarism," surveyed students on 23 college campuses and found that 38 percent of undergraduate students said they had committed "cut and paste" plagiarism one or more times in the last year. About half of these students also said they did not consider this type of plagiarism a form of cheating.
The article said students feel the need to cheat because of "the intense competition to get into graduate school, and land the top jobs." This pressure has always existed for college students, but the easy access to the Internet has provided more opportunities to plagiarize.
Students also have access to online term paper mills, such as EssaysFree.com, SchoolSucks.com, AcademicTermpapers.com and Aplustermpapers.com. These Web sites have made a profit by making pre-written essays available for purchase. Some also offer writers who will produce custom papers on any subject requested.
The Web site AcademicTermpapers.com has a warning that "all reports are copyrighted by Academic Term Papers and are sold for research and reference purposes only and may not be submitted either in whole or in part for academic credit." However, once sold, there is no way for the Web site to assure the paper it sold to a student will not be submitted to a professor.
Alan Abeel, '09, said he does not agree with plagiarism.
"Plagiarism is not only disrespectful, but it's an act of pure laziness," Abeel said. "Just do your own work. Why should anyone receive credit for work done by someone else?"
In an e-mail interview, Dean of Students Chris Mulvihill said the office of student conduct deals with students who are caught cheating.
"Each case is handled individually," Mulvihill said, "but I have had cases where homework assignments that are worth less than one percent of the course and were fraudulent resulted in the student failing the course and receiving probation. In short, the weight of the assignment does not determine the sanctions imposed."
