Summary of paper.

The paper was written as a tool to make students aware of what plagiarism is, how to
identify it and how to avoid it. It also aimed to show students how to reference correctly
and its importance in the overall academic writing conventions. The paper builds upon the
work of previous studies (for example Allen et. al 2005 cited in McGowan and Lightbody
2007) which taught correct referencing procedures in a generic manner. The paper
advocates that correct referencing must be taught for a discipline-specific subject such as
accounting (as in this study) rather than generally (McGowan and Lightbody 2007).

The study was split into two parts. The first was for the students to partake in an online
plagiarism workshop and also read a Harvard referencing guide. The students would
indicate that they had read the requisite principles when they submitted their assignments.
The second part of the study made students find examples of plagiarism in a specifically
designed accounting essay.

The assignment´s effectiveness was evaluated in two different ways. The first was to
evaluate if the students were able to apply the principles of plagiarism in an academic
context from their assignments. Feedback was made by the professors to find out the
students perception about the effectiveness of the course. Post evaluation it was found that
the assignment was extremely effective because they reached their goal in improving the
understanding of plagiarism and referencing in the majority of the students. This result was
confirmed by the academic staff.

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Critically analyze the paper´s purpose.

The purpose of the study has several inherent strengths. The study is innovative because
previous studies have dealt with plagiarism and referencing in a general manner whilst this
study is subject specific. The paper maintains that it is more efficient to apply correct
referencing principles to a specific subject. Further strengths include that the study actually
helped the subjects to increase their knowledge of plagiarism and referencing. Another
strength of the study is that assistance was available to those students who failed the course
to assist them in developing their understanding of plagiarism and referencing.

The study may also create good techniques to reduce plagiarism at other universities.
Students could improve their marks because they would understand more of what they read
and write rather than copying and pasting the information.

The main strength of the study is that it can be used as a preventive tool because the main
idea is to prepare the students to identify and avoid plagiarism that could be unconscious or
due to a lack of knowledge about it. Currently in many universities instead of preparing the
students, professors just punish them.

Whist the study has many strengths there are also many weaknesses. A main weakness of
the study is that they just focused on Accountancy. This would make it difficult for the
study to be replicated in other disciplines. The principles of Accountancy referencing may
not work for others disciplines. The study is inherently limited because it fails to make a
comparison to other disciplines. For example if the study was given to Law students the
success rates may not be so high. Furthermore the study doesn’t give an indication of how
to apply the principles outlined here to other subjects. Because of the lack of specific
principles or rules it makes it difficult to replicate the study cross-discipline and verify its
results.

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Additionally the test was not carried out under scientific conditions. The students were
asked to read the online workshop in their own time but there was no verification of this.
This could render the results inaccurate. Another weakness was the poor feedback rates.
They just received responses from 144 students in 2004 of a total of 272 what means about
60% and in 2003 they received responses from 160 of a total of 266 what means about
53%. Such low feedback rates make it difficult to make an accurate correlation and
evaluation.

In addition this program was executed in second year Accountancy students rather than first
year students. If the study was aimed at first year students then it would instill the
principles early rather than letting them develop bad habits.

A further limitation is that the study only applies to text based plagiarism. For example
works of art can also be plagiarized but again this study does not produce any method to
identify this type of plagiarism. The study also does not give a definitive outline of what
plagiarism is. Plagiarism is a multifaceted concept with a multitude of definitions and
subject specific applications. A typical dictionary definition of plagiarism is ‘literary theft’
(Posner 2007). But this definition is incomplete because there can also be plagiarism of
music, pictures and ideas (ibid.).

Also the article assumes plagiarism to be a blight in academia. However in some disciplines
such as
Law ‘plagiarism’ is an active and generally accepted concept (ibid.) It is common to cite
the original statutes rather than cite where the statutes were originally read from (ibid.).

What questions does it raise?

The study raises many questions that could be further explored in future studies. For
example:
• What is plagiarism?

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 • How has the definition of plagiarism changed due to technological, historical and
cultural changes?
• Is plagiarism on the rise or is it just more easilt detected due to technological
advances?
• What are the motives for plagiarism?
• Are there any instances where plagiarism is accepted?
• Is this methodology of this study the best way to avoid plagiarism?
• Can this methodology be applied to other subjects?
• Is it correct to specialise the assignment to each discipline?
• Do students make their best in this assignment just because they have to get good
marks?
• How does the use of computers affect plagiarism?
• Do copy right laws apply to pages on the internet? How much can be quoted from
an internet article under fair use? (Ehrlich, August 2009)

How does it fit with current (post 2008) thinking on the subject of
plagiarism?

Since this study in 2008 there have been myriad studies into the subject of plagiarism-
several of which refer to the new technological advances. According to Bhosale (2010)
things have become quite easy and efficient for students (cited in Bruwelheide 2010).
Thousands of articles and date are available with the help of internet search engines within
few seconds which makes plagiarism easier. It has been suggested that approaches such as
‘honor codes’ and treating plagiarism as rule-breaking or a crime have been ineffective for
various reasons, including the changing nature of students and how they view information
in their culture of sharing and breaking the rules (Blum (2009) cited in Bruwelheide 2010).

Another issue of relevance is the new online sources that students can use to prepare an
assignment such as youtube videos, twitter and facebook. The referencing conventions will
continue to change as new technologies develop.

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References:

Bruwelheide, J.H. (2010) Plagiarism: Trends, Thoughts, Suggestions Tech Trends

[http://www.springerlink.com/content/q213061850477339/fulltext.pdf] Accessed 23rd
October 2010
It is research about plagiarism and education. They cite many authors and their opinions about
plagiarism and how could be avoided. Some of them gave their definitions and categorized the
different types of plagiarism. They also give examples of plagiarism. Furthermore they talk about
software that nowadays is already available to identify plagiarism. Also they introduce a little
discussion that emerged when a professor suggested that using the software could be violation of
students’ copyrights. They describe other techniques to catch plagiarism that don’t involve
commercial products. Using search engines that open journals, articles and web material such as
Google.

Ehrlich, H (2009) Plagiarism and Anti-Plagiarism

[http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~ehrlich/plagiarism598.html] Accessed 23rd October 2010
It’s a article that talks about the rapidly increasing of plagiarism because of two main reasons; the
rise of internet and the decline in students’ writing. They suggest three questions to answer about
university polices towards plagiarism, penalties imposed when a plagiarized assignment is
discovered, the acceptable level of plagiarism before acting with a prosecution, techniques to
identify plagiarism, and how plagiarism is changing with computers and the internet. Further to
this they suggested an important issue within this topic, they maintain that if the student has more
abilities than professors have then they are able to plagiarize with impunity and without fear.

McGowan S and Lightbody M (2008), Enhancing Students Understanding of Plagiarism

within a Discipline Context, ACCOUNTING EDUCATION, 17(3), September,
forthcoming
This is research about a study made in a Australian University due to the concern of the ongoing
problem with student plagiarism in assessments. They suggest a pre-emptive technique to reduce
plagiarism, giving the students the correct tools to be able to write their own assignment without
plagiarizing. Students were asked to answer a questionnaire before planning that consisted of a
new subject to know their existing abilities and then compare them with the end result. The study
had some problems with its execution but at the end they reached their goals whereby students
increased their knowledge about plagiarism.

Posner, R. A. (2007). The Little Book of Plagiarism. New York.: Pantheon.

This book is a brief introduction about what plagiarism is that includes definitions, examples of
different kinds of plagiarism and opinions. The book maintains that students commonly plagiarize,
so that’s why he says that all the students should be considered suspects. We can maintain that this
is a useful overview of the subject. Posner gives his conclusion about the topic, he maintains that
plagiarism is an “embarrassingly second-rate” offense and he suggests that plagiarism should
remain in an ethical rather than a legal offense. He suggests that plagiarism should be viewed as a
form of fraud.

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Content.

Summary of paper..............................................................................................1

Critically analyze the paper´s purpose................................................................2

What questions does it raise?.............................................................................3

How does it fit with current (post 2008) thinking on the subject of plagiarism? 4

References:......................................................................................................... 5

Content............................................................................................................... 6