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Thinking about cheating? Turnit in.com will find you

By William Hall

There’s a huge recycling bin on campus that most students don’t know exists.

It isn’t for aluminum cans, newspaper or plastic bottles.

It’s for select writing assignments – term papers, research papers or essays – which a professor thinks may be plagiarized.

It’s called turnitin.com and if a student recycles someone else’s work and turns it in as his own, turnitin.com is going to spot it.

Mary Murray, the director of CSU’s Writing Across the Curriculum Program and Writing Center, said the turnitin.com site has become extremely popular with the faculty.

“(Plagiarism) is a huge problem,” Murray said. “The faculty wants students to think for themselves and to use their own words, and turnitin.com is the best site to ensure that students are doing their own work.”

Here’s how it works: A professor receives an assignment she believes is plagiarized. The paper is then scanned (if a electronic file is not available) onto a computer.

The professor logs onto the Web site using a user id and password and uploads the text.

According to the Web site, the text then enters turnitin.com’s “vast proprietary databases” which use “advanced pattern-matching technology.”

These databases include more than 10 million student papers, millions of pages of books and journals and more than 4.5 billion pages of the current and archived Internet.

In five minutes, an “Originality Report” is produced with text matches highlighted with links to the source.

The report uses a color-coded scale to indicate the amount of matching text. Blatant plagiarism (anything above 75 percent) comes back red, whereas original papers get a blue icon.

It is then up to the professor to decide what action to take.

Turnitin.com was first available for use at CSU four years ago.

“It was originally only to be used by professors in the Writing Across the Curriculum Program,” Murray said. “It became so popular with professors that they were sharing the password with faculty outside of the program.”

Murray said that with the help of former Vice Provost Bill Shorrock, the university got the funding and has been a subscriber since April 2004. Turnitin.com is now available for use by any faculty member.

Using an enrollment formula, turnitin.com charges CSU $8,000 a year. In the 15 months CSU has subscribed to turnitin.com, faculty has submitted 6,324 papers. The papers determined to be blatantly plagiarized (at least 75 percent text match) totals 4.5 percent. Another 1.1 percent had text matches of 50-74 percent.

Plagiarism concerns growing on campus

By William Hall

Plagiarism is a growing concern on campuses all over the country. The Internet with its volumes of information is enticing students to use short-cuts.

“Students are used to using the Internet. They would rather cut, copy and paste than read a book,” said Mary Murray, the director of Cleveland

State’s Writing Across the Curriculum Program and Writing Center.

Murray said some students who plagiarize simply lack confidence in their ability to make an argument in their own words.

“Certain students are unsure of their thinking and rather than being wrong, will take others’ information and try to pass if off as their own,” Murray said.

The CSU Student Handbook warns students of the consequences if caught plagiar-izing.

A minor infraction is incurred when a student cheats on an assignment worth 25 percent or less of a course grade.

A major infraction occurs when a student cheats on an assignment that could affect the overall course grade.

A major infraction or multiple minor infractions result in an academic misconduct entry in the student’s permanent record.

Murray said if a student with a marked record transfers, the academic misconduct notation transfers as well. Who’s doing it Mark Souther, an assistant professor in the history department, said plagiarism is a fairly big problem at the survey level but not in upper level classes.

“Typically it’s students who are in a hurry and lack initiative,” Souther said.

“(These same students) also lack initiative in the attempt to plagiarize by not searching much for the information they use.”

How to spot it He said a paper written inconsistently is a sign of plagiarism.

“If I’m reading what appears to be a C paper and it suddenly transforms into something that is glowingly written, it raises some questions in my mind right there,” Souther said.

Souther said he tailors assignments to ask specific questions so students can’t pull something directly off the Web.

David Goldberg, an associate professor in the history department, has also planned assignments to make cheating harder.

“I frame my assignments to make (cheating) more difficult,” Goldberg said. “The biggest problem is research papers. Students have to be very careful because the Internet has made (cheating) easier.”

For more information about the CSU writing center go to: csuohio.edu/writingcenter/

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