Stopping the copying

One half of the students at the University of Cambridge have plagiarized, according to the results of a recent survey by Varsity, the university’s student paper.

The university and the survey defined plagiarism as “handing in someone else’s essay; copying and pasting from the Internet; copying statistics, code or field-work; making up statistics, code or field-work; handing in previously submitted work; using someone else’s ideas without acknowledgement; buying an essay, or having an essay edited by Oxbridge Essays.” The survey only attracted 1,014 respondents, about 5 percent of the university’s entire student body.

Although the results might not establish causation, students of certain subjects – like law, anthropology and archaeology – tend to plagiarize more.

Despite the overwhelming and disappointing number of students who plagiarize, 80 percent of students believe the University does enough to combat academic dishonesty. The Cambridge Web site claims that the University’s “(academic) examiners are experts in their field and are therefore extremely likely to spot work that has been copied from another source or not referenced appropriately.” It appears some of these “examiners” have been duped.

Students might feel comfortable cheating because they believe there won’t be any significant consequences. However, the University’s Web site states, “Any suspected cases of plagiarism will be investigated by the University. This might involve initially being interviewed by the Examiners and Proctors and could ultimately lead to suspension from the University or failure.”

Other than this weak threat of suspension and failure, the individual departments – law, anthropology and archaeology – do not name specific repercussions. This lack of specific punishment might not be a strong enough deterrent for students.   

This survey suggests that even the University of Cambridge – one of the oldest and most respected places of higher learning – fosters academically dishonest students.

According to a survey of 18,000 students by Rutgers University, 40 percent of students plagiarize from the Internet. No university – including IU – is safe from this sort of casual plagiarism.

It is admirable that any university would rather assume its students do not plagiarize.

But professors and teaching assistants need to check students’ work closely and employ software programs to detect plagiarism. Plagiarism destroys the reputation of the university and its students.

Although threats are never fun or encouraged, IU and other universities need to establish specific and significant punishments for all acts of plagiarism. Hopefully a combination of greater vigilance and more severe punishments will prevent further plagiarism.