Kelley Costigan, Producer
Welcome to the Wyrd Learning podcast with your hosts, Dr. Tracy Dix and Dr. Alex Patel. Today's episode, “What Are the Pitfalls of Plagiarism?” With special guest, Dr. Catherine Armstrong.
Alex Patel
Hello and welcome back to the latest Wyrd Learning podcast. Today we’re going to be talking about plagiarism, which is a very complex and interesting topic. My name is Alex Patel, and I've got –
Tracy Dix
Tracy Dix.
Alex Patel
And we've also been joined by Catherine Armstrong.
Dr Catherine Armstrong, Loughborough University
Hello, everyone.
Alex Patel
So could you remind us what do you do, Catherine?
Catherine Armstrong
Hi, I'm Catherine and I'm a lecturer at Loughborough University. So I'm a historian and I specialise in American history. I work on the history of slavery but as well as my research, I also teach undergraduates and postgraduates and I've also held various posts in my university as well. And one of those is that I chair academic misconduct committees. So unfortunately, that means I get to meet students who have been accused of academic misconduct, such as plagiarism, contract cheating, collusion, and other aspects. And I have to be part of a team that assesses whether that offence has taken place and if so, what the penalty would be.
Alex Patel
A very serious role.
Catherine Armstrong
It is.
Alex Patel
It sounds like lots of paperwork as well.
Catherine Armstrong
It is, yes.
Alex Patel
So I should say that at one point, I was a teaching fellow in neurobiology and comparative neurobiology, with similar, you know, long titles, so I did a similar thing in that I would be marking students’ work and identifying cases of plagiarism. So Tracy, I don't have any particular experience you'd like to share about plagiarism?
Tracy Dix
Yeah, so I - many moons ago - used to also work at Loughborough University as a university teacher in the English department, which is the kind of same school that Catherine is in now, but we were kind of working there at different times. So I used to do hourly the teaching on a number of English modules. And yes, there were a couple of times when I detected that students had, you know, used work in their essays that they shouldn't have done or perhaps hadn't attributed it properly. And back then it was more of a case of referring to the module leader to speak to the student and kind of make the final decision on what the penalties would be, but my role initially was to just detect it in the first place. And the tools we used were different from now. So I think that's going to be a very interesting conversation.
Alex Patel
Okay. We’ll have to remember to get back to that one.
Tracy Dix
Yep.
Alex Patel
But what do you do now? How do you help students around plagiarism?
Tracy Dix
So now I'm an academic skills consultant, at a UK university, and I see many students on a one-to-one basis. So they'll come and say, you know, “I have never come across this concept of plagiarism before what does it mean?” And, you know, “How do I reference properly?” “How do I,” you know, “use material that I've read?” like, “What are the boundaries?” “How much can I quote? How do I go about it?” “What are the differences between referencing citations and quotations for example?”, but also, you know, students do also come having had their essay feedback, and you just say, you know, that problems with correct referencing,
Alex Patel
So you just covered a lot of different terminology.
Tracy Dix
Hm hm.
Alex Patel
I think that's perhaps something we need to start with.
Tracy Dix
Yep.
Alex Patel
So, okay. Firstly, what is plagiarism? Tracy, you go first.
Tracy Dix
What is plagiarism? So plagiarism is basically using someone else's work and passing it off as your own. But I suppose I could talk about it in legal terms. It's an infringement of intellectual property rights, but this is going back fairly generally, I think.
Alex Patel
Yeah. Okay, okay. We can - We'll just keep it short and simple. So, Catherine, what would you add to that?
Catherine Armstrong
Yeah, I think that's a really good definition. I suppose from my perspective, there is what we might think of as deliberate and accidental plagiarism. And so for me deliberate plagiarism is where a student has willfully copied large amounts of other people's words into their own essay with no attempt to acknowledge that other person as the author of that work.
Alex Patel
So is this an attempt to deceive the person marking it to pass it off as their own?
Catherine Armstrong
Absolutely. I think, I think that's what, what makes plagiarism so, so upsetting for tutors at university actually –
Alex Patel
And actually, also for students who have put all the work in.
Catherine Armstrong
Absolutely.
Alex Patel
If somebody who is plagiarising and done none of the word gets the same grade, then it's quite upsetting. It's not fair.
Catherine Armstrong
It really is. And, you know, in some cases, we can see really significant proportions of a piece of written work, actually, not having been altered by that student. Even though they've put their name to it. And chances are they will also have had to sign a declaration saying it was their own words too. So it really is a fraudulent piece of work they're presenting.
Alex Patel
Okay, so did you also mention accidental plagiarism?
Catherine Armstrong
Absolutely, and I think this refers back to what Tracy was talking about a moment ago, where you do have students who are genuinely confused about how they use the work of other scholars, that they're encouraged to read by their tutors and how they use that work and incorporate it into their own essays. And I think where accidental plagiarism happens is when a student is not precise about their own note taking. So they don't record that these words are from another author and they come to their notes later and think, “Oh, that was written really wonderfully. I'll copy that into my essay,” thinking it was their own notes. So that sort of mistake can happen. But also I think, as we said, plagiarism is a really complicated topic because referencing is actually quite complicated as well. And knowing how to reference properly is really tough.
Alex Patel
It is, it is.
Catherine Armstrong
And students who are unsure about how to reference properly, I do really recommend that you get help from your tutors in this regard because you're not alone here. A lot of students struggle with this.
Alex Patel
A lot of academics struggle with it.
Catherine Armstrong
Yes, you're absolutely right. That's so true.
Alex Patel
Okay, so that was a really in-depth answer. So if you don't want mind, Tracy, I won't ask you to add to this one.
Tracy Dix
That’s fine.
Alex Patel
Okay, so we've got some other terminology would either of you like to comment on what “academic integrity” means?
Catherine Armstrong
Well, I could speak to that because it's a term that we use frequently at Loughborough University. And in fact, we make sure that every single student whether undergraduate or postgraduate undertakes a short online test to ensure that they have sufficient academic integrity or rather that they understand what that term means. So for us, it's a really broad term meaning you are submitting and producing scholarship that has been produced honestly and fairly. So that could be around the issue of plagiarism that we're just discussing. But there are also other forms of academic integrity breach as well. For example, contract cheating, which is where a student buys an essay from an essay mill, or collusion, which happens usually in an exam, although it can be over a piece of coursework as well, where students share work with one another. That means that then, one student is presenting work that they themselves have not authored.
Alex Patel
Okay, so when I think about academic integrity, I tend to look at three things. So one of them is the honesty aspect, which you talked about then. But also, well, Tracy mentioned earlier, it was acknowledging other’s work.
Tracy Dix
Hm hm.
Alex Patel
So that's important, but the third one is that actually when you're creating an academic argument, you need to provide evidence. So citing a bit of information or describing an experiment or critiquing something, the reader will need to know where it's coming from, but also they need to have that link so if they want to look into it in more detail, they know the original source and can do.
Catherine Armstrong
Yeah, I agree with that. And it's a very difficult area because for example, if a student writing their essay has read Wikipedia, let's say as an example, and found some information useful for their essay, then they should use Wikipedia as a reference.
Tracy Dix
Oh! Controversial!
Catherine Armstrong
However, what they shouldn't do, in my opinion, is look in Wikipedia and look at the referencing within that Wikipedia entry and pretend, lie and say, “Oh, I read the original article that the Wikipedia source referenced”, because they haven't read it. They haven't been to that original article. By all means, it's okay to say something like “The Joe Bloggs article, such and such journal cited in Wikipedia”. That would be the correct reference because all you're doing with a reference is you're trying to show your reader what your process was as a scholar. And you want to do that as honestly as possible. If you found the information on Wikipedia, say so. That is of course going to be controversial, as you say, because many academics say that Wikipedia should never be cited because of its open source format. Anyone can adapt or amend Wikipedia article, and therefore it's very difficult to trace whose ideas are within that article anyway. So as you can see, referencing is an incredibly complex area. But also, I think that the idea that students should be including evidence from their broader reading is more complicated still, because when are they allowed to use the words of others? And when should they be paraphrasing and turning those ideas into their own words? And if they do paraphrase, what sort of reference should they then use for that paraphrased material?
Alex Patel
Yes, so how should they use it best?
Catherine Armstrong
Absolutely.
Alex Patel
Because simply reproducing a quotation doesn't demonstrate that a student understands it. And that actually doesn't add anything to the development of knowledge. So these are the types of things that we're going to go into in more detail in a later podcast, I would imagine. So, at the moment, what we're doing is giving kind of an overview of the general area of plagiarism and academic integrity. And what we'll do later is to go into more detail in certain areas. So you'll said about Wikipedia, and obviously that has, you know, kind of appeared over the last 20 years really, and so academics have had to work out how to make use of it. And that's been an ongoing thing. So speaking personally, I think Wikipedia is great, and I will use it to get an overview of an area and then if I'm going to use that for something serious. I acknowledge that you know, Wikipedia may not be entirely reliable, but equally it might be. I will then follow up with looking at the original papers that have been cited, or a review article in a recognised peer reviewed journal, for example. And the other thing you mentioned was secondary referencing, which is quite interesting. So I didn't know about this until much later on. And so I think when I was doing my third year dissertation on projects, you know, I was reading a review article, and then claiming, in my, [laughs] my thesis, or my projects, that I'd read all these papers which obviously, you know, the person assessing it knows that I have not spent the last six months reading about 200 papers.
Catherine Armstrong
No.
Alex Patel
You know. So, there is a method called secondary referencing which acknowledges that and that is to acknowledge the original source, but to say where you read the interpretation of it in, but one thing you have to note is that, since you've got it from another source, there may be some misunderstandings. So if it's something that is a key pillar of your arguments, you should go back to that original piece of material. Sorry about that really long… Why is it important? Tracy can I invite you to answer that one?
Tracy Dix
Why?
Alex Patel/Tracy Dix
Why is avoiding plagiarism important?
Tracy Dix
Yeah, so as I said at the beginning, plagiarism is passing someone else's work off as your own and that is basically stealing and stealing is wrong. But also like from the academic integrity perspective, it's important to acknowledge the work of other scholars who have come before yourself and upon whose you know, thinking, hypothesis, experiments, you're building your argument on. So it is a form of courtesy, really, to kind of acknowledge that, you know, you've borrowed someone else's work, and you're building upon that to form your own thesis and your own argument, you know, in terms of assessment at university I mean, that's very much part of academic practice, is that you attribute material correctly that you've relied on in your assessment, but also and I think there is a misconception among students about this, because very often, you know, a student will read something, it sounds good, “I couldn't possibly say it better in my own words, therefore, I'm going to quote, you know, such and such a scholar, because it sounds really clever. It's going to make my essay sound clever.” And so the way I encourage students to think about you know, reading secondary material is to kind of position themselves as part of an academic community. And yes, you know, they might be a relatively new member of this academic community, but they are one nonetheless. And what you know, people who are marking essays want to see is the student’s criticality and what their perspective is, and so it doesn't do a student any favours to basically hide behind voice of another scholar, and rather, they should put their own point of view across and as you said, you know, kind of citing evidence or acknowledging in the academic tradition, kind of up to now within the field of research.
Alex Patel
Okay, so it sounds a bit like you're talking about developing an academic identity.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Alex Patel
Even for first years.
Tracy Dix
Hm hm.
Alex Patel
So it's important to build this integrity to have people trust you and to not undermine this trust.
Tracy Dix
Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
Alex Patel
Yeah?
Tracy Dix
Catherine, would you like to speak to that?
Unknown
Well, I think it goes to your point, Tracy about how, as a member of the academic community, your voice as a first-year student at University, is as valid and as valued by that community as as anyone else’s. However, if your ideas and your words that you share with the scholarly community, to your written work, can't be trusted in the ways that we've been discussing, then the whole system doesn't work in effect. And so really, in order to be considered to be part of that community, you have to subscribe to its values and its internal practices, if you like, and I think, you know, it's really important that your listeners see themselves as valued and valid parts of this academic community, but also on a practical level, as well as a university student wanting to get a really good degree. It's important to get these things right, because the penalties are pretty harsh if you don't get them right. In terms of perhaps failing a particular piece of coursework even failing an entire module, perhaps even in worst case scenario, being asked to leave the university and of course, there are different penalties applied depending on the seriousness or depending on the intent of the student concerned, but nevertheless, the stakes are high here. So I completely agree with Tracy's point that the you know, the idea of the shared academic community is really important and we want to welcome in every cohort of new students, but at the same time pragmatically, you as a person wanting to get a good degree, it's important that you get this stuff right.
Tracy Dix
And I think it's worth coming back to Alex where you were saying about, you know, the expectations even at first year, because I think it's probably worth distinguishing between the expectations for like science students and art students, because they are different. And I think very much you know, in the kind of foundation year stages of you know, doing a science degree especially, a lot of the academic assessment is more knowledge-based, whereas I think arts and humanities students are usually a lot more comfortable with using secondary material. And so the idea…
Alex Patel
You might have to explain. So when you say “knowledge-based”, what does that mean? And “secondary material”, what does that mean?
Tracy Dix
Okay, so some of with knowledge-based, it's about students proving in their assess - in their assessments – in their exams, that they understand the kind of key concepts –
Alex Patel
Exactly.
Tracy Dix
- within their discipline. So…
Alex Patel
Can I give an example?
Tracy Dix
Yeah, go on.
Alex Patel
So it might be being able to write down in an essay how enzymes work.
Tracy Dix
Hm hm.
Alex Patel
So how substrate binds to a receptor, I guess, of an enzyme.
Tracy Dix
Hm hm.
Alex Patel
So that wouldn't necessarily require the students to talk about who did the actual research on that how reliable it was, and to include references or citations.
Tracy Dix
Hm hm. Yep, that's right. Whereas in the arts and humanities because I suppose a lot of the disciplines are kind of founded around opinions, and kind of, you know, for example, with history and so on. People's versions of the past aren't they, Catherine?
Catherine Armstrong
Absolutely.
Tracy Dix
So I think this awareness of like secondary material and being able to work with secondary material is usually expected from the first year, whereas in the sciences, that can be something that takes place, perhaps even more at dissertation level.
Alex Patel
Yeah, I would definitely agree. Because actually, there are differences of opinion in sciences. But initially, students are used to working with a textbook which gives a single version whereas actually when you get to your second year, and third year, and you're looking at contested areas of science, and you know, really exploring the unknown, you'll find different research papers which have different suggestions for how something is happening. And so at that point, you start to talk about well “Smith, et al decided it was this. However, so and so you know, has a different perspective on this.”
Tracy Dix
Hm hm.
Alex Patel
[Laughs] Don't write, “So and so had a different perspective.” So if you found this interesting so far, or if you have any questions, then do please get in contact with us. If you send us your questions, we will attempt to answer them within the next podcast, and we'll be following up this particular session with additional podcasts to look at more detail in some of the things we've looked at. So if you've enjoyed this then please tell your friends, write a review…
Tracy Dix
and subscribe so you don't miss our next episode.
Alex Patel
So, I wanted to ask you have you heard of any examples within the academic community of famous people, famous researchers, academics plagiarising. And what the consequences of that were or might be?
Tracy Dix
Well…
Alex Patel
So, I’ll give you a bit of a moment to think about it.
Tracy Dix
Okay.
Alex Patel
I won’t put you on the spot too much. So I can say that I certainly have. So it was somebody at the university that - one of the institution's I've been to, very famous researcher, biologist put out, I think, a controversial paper to do with some specimens of beetles. It sounds very exciting. You know, don't quote me on this, I may have got [laughs] some of this wrong. It could have been, you know, shellfish or molluscs or something.
Tracy Dix
Okay.
Alex Patel
But anyway, people in the academic community looked at this paper, had questions, were a bit concerned and said, “Can we have a look at your data?” And so some data centre craftspeople started working with this, they were thinking, “This doesn't make any sense. Okay, can we see your samples?” And at that point, there weren't any samples. They just didn't exist. The academic went through a lot of like, “Oh, I'm just looking for them. I've just misplaced them”, but they had never existed and the consequence of this was his whole reputation was just destroyed. So did you say you've got an example?
Tracy Dix
Well, so this is probably more of a fun fact, maybe than an example. But so Shakespeare who is you know, very much part of the academic canon and you know, on most English syllabi in the UK, was something of a plagiarist wasn't he?
Alex Patel
Oh.
Tracy Dix
So I don't know if you’re aware.
Alex Patel
You’ll have to explain that. Yeah, I don’t very much…
Tracy Dix
Okay, so, Shakespeare modelled a lot of his work on kind of other works such as to Plutarch’s Lives. And there, there is evidence within you know, secondary material, where scholars have kind of analysed the similarity of certain words in Shakespeare's plays, to, you know, some of his other sources, and I won't go into much detail into you know, what Shakespeare sources were because it's quite a long time since I've looked into those things. But yeah, so many of - many of Shakespeare's plays, were based on earlier works. And he is studied on many English degrees, if not all of them in - definitely in the UK, and you know, probably in the English-speaking world.
Alex Patel
So our producer, just said that it wasn't just Shakespeare at that point.
Tracy Dix
Oh, yes. Yes. Kelley would know a lot about.
Alex Patel
[Laughs] It was commonplace in that period.
Tracy Dix
It was commonplace in that period, but also so a slight digression, I guess, is I think it's becoming more and more commonplace in the digital world that we live in now. Where…
Alex Patel
Why would that be?
Tracy Dix
You know, many social media platforms actively encourage you to remix the work of other creators.
Alex Patel
Oh, that’s interesting.
Tracy Dix
Yeah. And actually, I think this is an area where perhaps our listeners would be able to enlighten us a lot more, [laughter] us you know, in our 40s, but it was just an interesting thought that came to mind when you said that, you know, a producer says it was very common at that time, because it's common again, now.
Alex Patel
It is. It is.
Tracy Dix
It is within certain subjects.
Alex Patel
And it’s not just copy and paste. It's like you say remixing…
Tracy Dix
And sharing …
Alex Patel
Someone else’s work, or simply sharing other people's work, maybe copying a meme and putting it on a different network.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Alex Patel
Without, you know, acknowledging where it's coming from. Is that important?
Tracy Dix
I think it can be. So, okay, another slight digression. There are more creative forms of assessment beyond exams and essays that are becoming more commonplace at university, such as presentations or you know, like you might be asked to create a video for example. And so the ways of attributing that kind of content has evolved as well. So there is an organisation called Creative Commons that you know, basically enables people to have a selection of open source material similar to Wikipedia. There's sort of different kinds of licences for this content. So some of it you can remix and share and put out as your own. Others you have to stick to the original but you can also share it and then some are only available on commercial licences. No, sorry, some are only available for personal use, but not for commercial use.
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Tracy Dix
And then if you want to use something commercially, you might pay for it.
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Tracy Dix
But you know, that's a slightly different issue that we will probably go into in another episode as well.
Alex Patel
Yeah. But it also highlights what you were saying about kind of referencing. There's so much like variety in different digital materials out there that quite often it's quite hard to work out how to reference an unusual type of source.
Tracy Dix
Hm hm.
Alex Patel
So some of that is a bit of guesswork or…
Tracy Dix
It can be so style guides do vary, don’t they accordingly?
Alex Patel
They do as well. Harvard for example.
Tracy Dix
Yes, Harvard referencing is
Alex Patel
All the universities are using it by now.
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Alex Patel
Harvard doesn’t of course.
Tracy Dix
But I mean, I would say that for many style guides you know how to reference different types of material has moved with the times and so you know, you would be told on a style guide like how to reference a Twitter something that you've got from Twitter, for example, or something out of a blog. But if you're struggling to find the correct way to reference then most academics I believe, although Catherine can confirm this, will be perfectly happy as long as you stick with a consistent style and go with the next closest thing. So for example, if it's something that's a video then stick with the format for a YouTube video, if it's something that you found online, as many things are nowadays, then very often, the kind of style that you follow for a website will do the job.
Catherine Armstrong
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. That's really great advice. I think that some students get so worried over referencing and that's partly because, well, I must admit, it's partly the fault of some academics to be fair, because what what certain of my colleagues tend to do is get so hung up about whether a particular part of a reference was in italics or was underlined or whether this was a comma or a semicolon, that students become almost paralysed with fear about how to write a reference for the work they're trying to cite. And actually, Tracy is absolutely right. As long as the reference gives you all the information that you need in order to go and check for yourself. Whether indeed, that is an accurate interpretation of that material, then you’re fine. That's not to say that if your particular tutor on a particular module doesn't give you really clear guidance, you know, if that happens, please follow that guidance. Because, you know, they're the ones marking your work and so they will have particular expectations in that area. But for many of us, actually, as long as you indicate clearly where for example, the YouTube video, or whatever is to be found and when you accessed it, and so on, then that's what the purpose of a reference is.
Alex Patel
Right, that's really helpful. So my technique for if I ever come across a source that I don't know how to reference is to [laughs] is to Google it. So what I'll do is look to a couple of well-known universities, or perhaps an example from a journal that is using the referencing system that I need to use and to see what they suggest. And if I found it in a couple of places, then that tends to be my best guess. If it's something unusual.
Catherine Armstrong
Okay.
Tracy Dix
I think so for students if you know if you want to try Googling how to reference something and if you're not sure, you know, which is accurate say, I mean, most universities do have style guides.
Alex Patel
For the basic –
Tracy Dix
By academic department –
Alex Patel
Well it does cover most things, doesn’t it?
Tracy Dix
Yeah, it does cover most things, but failing which you know, if you are Googling then going to resources provided by other universities would be quite a good place.
Alex Patel
Yep, yep, yeah. Okay, so, can we think about the question, “What are the biggest causes of plagiarism?”
Tracy Dix
Hm hm.
Alex Patel
So, what causes students to either deliberately or accidentally plagiarise? So shall we start with deliberate plagiarism? What kind of situation might a person be in where that's their choice?
Catherine Armstrong
Well, I think for me, it's wrong to think that students that deliberately plagiarise are somehow evil manipulative students trying to [laughter] trying to fool the system Absolutely, usually, very sadly, what's happened is that it's a good student who's found themselves in a very difficult position and they make a bad decision. And I would say that sometimes that's around questions of poor time management. So a student who has not sufficiently planned ahead for the deadlines coming up, and suddenly they realise they've got several pieces of work due at once and they know that they're simply not going to have time to write in their own words, everything. I think that sometimes it can be a student who has a piece of work that's compulsory to the module that they're doing, and they really just don't have a clue. And they don't want to admit that they don't understand that particular topic. Or that particular approach. And unfortunately, they don't ask for help, which of course, would be the right thing to do, whether that's from the module tutor themselves or from someone who's - can support students with their study skills in another part of the university. And so what they end up doing is again, they make a very bad decision and decide to copy and paste or perhaps even buy a piece of work from elsewhere.
Alex Patel
So is that the essay mill thing that you were talking about?
Catherine Armstrong
That’s right. Yes, and this is mercifully rare. Most students do not have anything to do with essay mills and don't encounter them in their university careers. But unfortunately, we are seeing some very aggressive tactics on the part of people that run essay mills, trying to target students and those who are vulnerable because they're uncertain of a particular topic, or perhaps they've run out of time and just become really desperate. “I've got to have something to submit.” Then they can fall prey to the essay mills and I think that this often happens as well when students are not clear about exactly what is permitted in terms -
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Catherine Armstrong
- of helping essay preparation. For example, Tracy has spoken about some really important and acceptable ways of students getting support with their assignments, but if you're approached online by someone offering to proofread your work, or perhaps if English is your second language, even offering to translate your work, please do not take them up on that. Even if they seem very plausible, very professional, very friendly. It's almost always the case that that sort of practice will be against regulations of your university, and you could be in serious trouble for taking up that offer.
Alex Patel
Yes, so at the institution I work for, if somebody has had any proofreading done, or especially something like translation, they sort of declare this when they submit. Are there any other dangers of essay mills? I would say I've got two actually.
Tracy Dix
Oh, okay, I've not really come across them. [laughter] I’m obviously not a target somehow.
Alex Patel
Well, I would say one of the dangers is that you might end up buying a generic essay, which really doesn't answer the question, or it might be that somebody writes a specific essay for you, which will probably cost reasonable amounts of money, but because they haven't gone through the lectures, the reading material of that course, it's likely to not hit the points or the kind of structure the arguments that the markers are expecting. So really, it's probably make sense to us to do it yourself and manage that time very carefully. And ask questions if you don't understand it. The other danger is that as Catherine was saying, some of these essay mills are somewhat underhand. Sometimes they will sell an essay to a student and then blackmail the student to say, you know, “We're going to tell the university that you plagiarised, that we sold you this essay, unless you give us this money.” Which again, you know, you don't want to get mixed up with people like that. And at the end of the day, you know, coming to university to learn to read a degree. And so you want to leave with those skills, getting somebody else to do the work for you just won't accomplish that at all. Any of the dangers? And that's probably the main ones.
Catherine Armstrong
I've come across cases where students who have bought essays from essay mills, having been told, you know, “This was prepared for you specifically”, and actually they’ve sold the same essays to others and so therefore, it's already out in the public domain and immediately is discovered.
Tracy Dix
So how do students who submit essays from essay mills get caught?
Catherine Armstrong
There are various ways. In that last case I mentioned the software Turnitin noticed that there was similarity with an essay that had been submitted elsewhere and immediately flagged that up as 100% similarity, but in many other cases, it's the sorts of things that Alex mentioning actually, when a piece of work is submitted that really doesn't answer the question. That’s a little bit of a flag. When a piece of work is submitted, that has within it material that the students haven't been taught on that module again, the tutor will think or perhaps they're an inspired and enterprising student would have gone and found a little bit of this themselves, but if the entire content is material that hasn't been taught to that student, again, that's a real red flag. And also, we look at other things such as the language and the style of writing used within a piece of work. So for example, we will have an example that we know that is the students own writing from, say, a diary piece or blog piece that they've written, and we will compare that and it's quite a complex process actually sort of people who, who understand these things, sort of linguistically comparing the writing styles. And if it's shown that the writing style is sort of significantly different in the essay that's been submitted, then that's an immediate red flag and once these pieces of work come on our radar, then IT specialists then dig around the document properties of the essay that's been submitted. And very often, it's immediately obvious that actually a second person, not the student themselves, someone completely different has edited or authored that document. And so it's through the metadata if you like, of the document that we have the the evidence confirming what's happened.
Tracy Dix
So processes for detecting that kind of cheating are very sophisticated.
Catherine Armstrong
Absolutely. Yes. Yeah.
Tracy Dix
But also, the other thing that's not to be overlooked is how obvious the language and tone of voice can be in assignments.
Alex Patel
And I when I first started marking a long time ago, but that was I think, before Turnitin.
Tracy Dix
Yep.
Alex Patel
And so you know, I'd be reading through an essay and one paragraph would be written in a certain you know, quite an authentic voice for a student at that level. Then all of a sudden, the next paragraph is a completely different tone. It's, it's like some seasoned professor who is about 70 [laughs].
Tracy Dix
Yeah.
Alex Patel
You notice the difference.
Tracy Dix
I don’t think students realise the difference, you know, and sometimes you can kind of see that they'll start to throw in a few big words to try and get away with it, but actually, it's glaringly obvious, isn't it? And I think the danger with essay mills as well, you know, aside from the very underhanded tactics that some of them use is you know, if you submit the first essay, and I mean, that's quite a dreadful situation to find yourself in. But if you submit a first essay from an essay mill, then you're really kind of tied into that cheating over and over and over again, because the moment you submit something in your own words, I mean, you know, the first essay is probably going to be picked up anyway. But you know, you are never going to be able to replicate that tone, you know, in terms of the kind of style and the language so you know, and this applies to you know, whether you get someone else proofread your work or you know, a relative or parent or anyone you know, you have to write it yourself because there is no way that you can replicate someone else's tone of voice or someone else's style. So you're kind of forever tied into you know, not doing the work yourself, you know, when you are awarded your degree (if you are) then what happens afterwards? You know, you you're claiming in your CV to have developed these skills from doing a degree that you don't have, and you're unable to prove.
Alex Patel
Yep. So if you end up getting a job based on your degree and you simply aren't able to perform and do what you said you could do. That's not a good position to be in sounds very stressful. Okay, so we've looked at deliberate plagiarism. So, what are the causes of accidental plagiarism?
Tracy Dix
With accidental plagiarism, I think often it's that lack of confidence, you know, on the part of many students, where they, you know, they're told that paraphrasing is okay, so they start to kind of substitute words from secondary material to well, not really to kind of get away with it. But you know, I think in the mind of many students, they're told that's what they have to do. So they want to follow the rules and they paraphrase, but they can be quite tricky because you know, within certain disciplines, for example, they're very subject-specific terms that may come up again and again. So I think some students end up kind of tying themselves in knots trying to paraphrase everything to the point where you know, their essay doesn't really make a lot of sense, and they still haven't, I mean, the key I think behind that is that they need to develop their own criticality, they need to feel comfortable explaining and exploring certain concepts.
Alex Patel
Yeah. I know I marked an essay, which you know, was maybe - it was a small one, about three pages long, but almost every paragraph was a quotation.
Tracy Dix
Hm hm.
Alex Patel
And it doesn't matter if that quotation is appropriately referenced with citations, and a nice reference list at the end, it doesn't demonstrate the student's understanding. It doesn't add to the knowledge of the area, and it doesn't answer the essay question typically. So, what people need to do is to work towards being able to use kind of small, shorter quotations to illustrate the point and to then talk about what that quotation demonstrates. What does it mean in the context of the essay question that's being asked? And that is a skill to learn, you know, but I agree with what Tracy was saying about lack of competence. That particular student just didn't think they could phrase it better than the original author. And so that resulted in just you know, kind of plagiarised chunks of text.
Tracy Dix
So, I have to hold my hands up at this point and say that I was that kind of student sometimes.
Alex Patel
Aw.
Tracy Dix
And I think, so on recollection. I think for me, it was a case of too many deadlines at once, like, for example, four deadlines at the same time, but also, you know, Catherine mentioned earlier on about, you know, compulsory modules that you have to take and there were some I was really just not interested in and I struggled with the content. And so yeah, I did basically glue an essay together with a bit of commentary on you know, with “additionally” and “moreover” and “however, so and so says this” and, you know, cobbled an essay together based on lots of quotations, and technically that wasn't cheating. It wasn't plagiarism, because I attributed everything correctly, but I didn't do very well for it. And so that is the kind of other consequence is either way, you're not going to do very well whether it's cheating or not.
Catherine Armstrong
I think the question about whether the student’s words or whether the scholar’s words from from the reading preferable is a really interesting one because I came across a case recently very similar to what Alex was saying about that the student really lacked confidence to express themselves in academic English, and suggested that from the educational background that they had had come, it was completely normal to use the words of the scholarship that you were reading because that was a way of kind of almost you know, showing how revered that scholarship was, and it would have been considered almost rude to try to paraphrase and put that idea in your own words. And so I think it's really important for us as academics and even working at universities in the UK to, to understand that the educational backgrounds of our students might bring them to very different points might, might lead them to understand plagiarism and scholarly material in a very different way. And, and there may be maybe some students who come to us who really have got no background at all in kind of referencing and bibliographies and so on. And so it's important for us as a staff members to make sure especially in that first few weeks of the first year of our students’ study that we give them that support that they need.
Alex Patel
Really interesting. As our last kind of area to look at…
Tracy Dix
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Alex Patel
[Laughs] It's a hot one today. [laughs] What would be your top tips to avoid plagiarism?
Tracy Dix
Shall I? Shall I start? Okay, so when students come and see me and when we start that conversation about developing your own perspective, and so on. So this is a bit of a roundabout approach, I suppose, especially in students’ minds, but what I usually guide them to do is analyse the essay topic first, and kind of you know, do the research a little bit later, just because I think through the process of brainstorming and analysis, they start to form their own ideas and their own opinions, which then I think makes them less susceptible to kind of being led down a route of you know, this is what so and so scholar has said and therefore I must take that way as well.
Alex Patel
Okay, so that is something that we will be covering in another episode for sure.
Tracy Dix
Yes.
Alex Patel
Because it is a really fundamental part of approaching essays, assignments, and research. Okay, any other tips?
Catherine Armstrong
I think for me, it's never be afraid of asking or admitting that you're not sure about the reference or how to avoid plagiarism because as I mentioned earlier, we tend to give our students an academic integrity test right at the very beginning of their career with us and then such matters aren't talked about very often in the course of a typical module. There might be a note in the module handbook about avoiding plagiarism, and here are the university regulations as to how to avoid that or rather to, you know, to alert you to the seriousness of what plagiarism is. But actually, it's week by week in most modules, it's not something that comes up very often. And so for some students, they may have forgotten what they initially learned or perhaps not grasped it sufficiently at the outset. We do understand this. Honestly, please do ask if you're not sure. Plagiarism itself is, you know, going to be a huge problem for you if it's discovered, after that essay has been submitted. What is not a problem at all is you saying, “I have no idea how to reference this. Help.”
Alex Patel
Yep.
Catherine Armstrong
That is not a problem in the slightest. So please choose that option rather than trying to wing it and see what happens when you submit the essay.
Tracy Dix
So who can students go to for help with referencing?
Catherine Armstrong
That's a really good question. I think in every university, there's going to be slightly different systems and structures for this but I would say first, really good port of call is your seminar tutor or module leader on that particular module. In effect the person who has set and will be marking that piece of work, and they should be able to work closely with you to advise you about avoiding plagiarism in your particular subject area and sub-discipline. If for some reason they're not available or you can't haven't got access to them. Your personal tutor would also be able to help. All academics have a really detailed knowledge of this sort of stuff, and even if they're not teaching the precise assignment, the precise essay that you're working on, they'll be able to give you some some support. Outside of the academic staff, there are also loads and loads of other people who can help. There are people in - certainly Loughborough - in our Student Support Team that can meet with you on a one-to-one basis and talk you through that particular assignment. And also at Loughborough, we have librarians who fulfil a very similar sort of role and they have drop-in sessions that where you're able to, to present your particular concern, and they also run small courses, maybe short workshops of an hour at a time. Some of these are online, some in person, in which the principles of referencing and avoiding plagiarism are explained. So, you can access those in a in a group context, if it's more of a general overview of the area that you need.
Tracy Dix
So, lots of places and people that students can go to for help. And, uh, you know, just to reiterate again, really, we've talked about independent learning before at university and that doesn't mean you have to do it yourself – well, all by yourself. I mean, we can't write your essays for you or anything like that, but you should always, you know, never feel ashamed or awkward to ask for help with things you don't understand even if the content has been covered before.
Alex Patel
So, I’ve got a couple of tips.
Tracy Dix
Okay.
Alex Patel
So, one of them is, as we were talking about, it's time management and planning, make sure you're not rushing at the end and having an absolute panic trying to put together a 2000-word essay in two days. Just try and be organised, start early, do a little bit every week, go through it, and give yourself enough time to pull together that reference list. And it does take a while but I would say there are a few couple of days to focus on that. So that ties in with note making. So you need to think about how you're going to capture this information. So thinking about what sources you've read, it might just be making a short note about such and such and if you are writing and paraphrasing and taking quotations from a piece of work, then you need to make very clear in your notes whether it is your own words, your summary or paraphrase or whether it is a direct quotation, because that's obviously a very important thing to then be aware of when you're putting that information into your essay. So that also means that you know, we need to understand what's paraphrasing, quotations, and summaries are. So paraphrasing is usually when you take a couple of sentences and rephrase it in your own words. A summary tends to be a larger section of text, so it may be a chapter or a couple of paragraphs and you're summarising that for the reader, or it's a quotation is using quotation marks, and it's word for word what's been written within a text, which you then need to put your own interpretation on. Would either of you two like to add anything to that? Any other top tips? There are of course many, many more.
Tracy Dix
Well, maybe just one last thing. So early on in this episode, Catherine talked about Wikipedia and I have come across a number of students who, you know, when I, when I looked at their essay to see what had gone wrong, and I asked them about their topic because I'm not a subject specialist in their area, it was really clear to me that they had an insufficient understanding of their subject. And I think that the thing I would say here is, if you don't understand what's in your textbooks or in your lecture notes, then it's fine to go to Wikipedia and you know, to go to other sources of information to get the basics. And then from there, you can kind of build upon your knowledge to the point where you feel capable of, you know, approaching your, your assignment. So, you know, just because, you know, we mentioned this earlier, some academics will say, “Don't ever use Wikipedia never use Google.” But in reality we all do, and I'm willing to bet that said academic who's told you that, also uses Google and Wikipedia. [Laughs]
Alex Patel
Not in their research articles or…
Tracy Dix
Well, not in their research articles, but they might, you know, use it to kind of understand the basics of certain areas that are less familiar to them. So, use it as a starting point.
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Tracy Dix
Get, get that basic understanding of whatever it is, whatever the concept is, you need to grasp, and then go to your textbooks, you know, look at research papers and so on.
Alex Patel
Yeah.
Tracy Dix
Okay, so that's my top tip.
Alex Patel
So as we go through these podcasts, we're going to be looking at these things in a lot more detail, along with other tips and advice around effective approaches to study. So if you found this helpful, then please share with your friends and colleagues, write to review and third one?
Tracy Dix
And subscribe -
Alex Patel
And subscribe -
Tracy Dix
So you don't miss an episode. But also, when you review not only does it make us do a happy dance, it also helps us to reach more people.
Alex Patel
So we're going to do a happy dance.
Tracy Dix
Yes, but no one will see because we're in a podcast.
Alex Patel
Marvellous [laughs]. Okay, so I’d just like to thank Catherine for joining us.
Tracy Dix
Yes.
Alex Patel
It's been a very interesting discussion. I'm looking to have you come back again another time.
Catherine Armstrong
Thank you, I’d love to.
Alex Patel
Okay, bye from me.
Tracy Dix
Yes, and bye from me, Tracy.
Alex Patel
Bye!
Kelley Costigan, Producer
You have been listening to Wyrd learning. With Dr. Tracy Dix and Dr. Alex Patel, with special guest, Dr. Catherine Armstrong. Music by Defekt Maschine, from Pixabay. Produced by Kelley Costigan
