In the cut-and-paste-happy Internet age, Lolly Smith takes a vigilant approach to evaluating papers at Everett Community College.
The English instructor isn’t shy about using Google searches — a quick Internet veracity check — when suspicious phrases pop up in essays.
Her cyber-sleuthing is warranted. One such search yielded a student who had plagiarized a paper from another plagiarist.
Smith believes it is a sign of the times when information is so easily accessible.
“They have a different attitude about intellectual properties,” she said.
EvCC is taking on plagiarism. Recently, students and faculty spent a lunch hour trying to define it, explore its many shades and discuss ways to tighten policies.
Faculty began comparing notes last year, agreeing it is a problem that must be addressed systematically. The school has developed strategies to detect and prevent it.
“I think formal policies are going to have to grow out of that,” said Paul Marshall, an EvCC instructor who coordinates the Teaching and Learning Center.
Plagiarism is an issue that reaches beyond Everett. Colleges across the country have increasingly relied on Internet companies that detect stolen words and ideas.
In a case that grabbed national headlines, 158 students stood accused of violating the University of Virginia honor code two years ago for plagiarizing on physics papers. Eventually, 20 students were found guilty by a college committee of violating the honor code, and 28 withdrew from the university without going through a hearing.
Marshall doesn’t mince words: “Plagiarism is cheating.”
Marshall, who has taught psychology and sociology for two decades at the college, has had two students turn in the same paper. He has also heard colleagues scream and groan when they catch a student passing off someone else’s work in their papers.
He looks at it as hurting individual students and ultimately robbing society’s marketplace of ideas.
“If I take the easy route … I don’t force myself to dig inside myself to find the deeper ideas I have,” he said.
Nora Cavanaugh, a Running Start student from Monroe High School and student senator at EvCC, believes there needs to be clear definitions about what plagiarism is and the consequences of committing it.
“I think it’s probably a lot bigger problem than we expect that it is,” she said.
“It ruins the academic level playing field we try to function on,” said Stuart Bowers, a Running Start student from South Whidbey High School who plans to transfer to the University of Washington.
Bowers, also an EvCC student government leader, believes plagiarism is “more an issue of procrastination and lethargy” than anything else.
Smith offered this advice to her colleagues:
“We can help students understand what plagiarism is, we can teach them how to incorporate and cite sources in their papers, we can hold them accountable to standards, but it is ultimately the students’ job to be responsible for their words.”
Eric Stevick writes for The Herald in Everett.
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