The Complete Plagiarism Resource

Plagiarism has always been one of academia's most common crimes, and with the rise in Internet use, this problem is growing. However, if students can be properly educated about plagiarism from the start, most problems can be prevented.

This comprehensive resource will tell you everything you need to know about plagiarism, including statistics, common definitions, plagiarism tutorials, and other resources.

Quick Facts -Defining Plagiarism- Plagiarism Tutorials - Useful Resources

Quick Facts

• 80% of college students admit to cheating at least once. (Center for Academic Integrity)
• 52% of 1,800 students at nine state universities had copied several sentences from a website without citation. (McCabe, D.L.)
• More than two-thirds of 2,100 students from 21 campuses copied or plagiarized work done by another student (Center for Academic Integrity)
• 15% of high school students admit to obtaining a paper from a term paper mill or website (Plagiarism.org)
• 50% of high-school students surveyed by Rutgers University see nothing wrong with cheating (McCabe, D.L. )
• 90% of students believe that cheaters are either never caught or have never been appropriately disciplined (US News and World Report)

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Defining Plagiarism

• Definition: Plagiarism is the act of presenting another person's work (including ideas, writing, conversation, song, and words) as your own. When using another person's work, even when paraphrasing, you must aknowledge it fully and appopriately, unless the information is common knowledge. Proper acknowledgement requires citing sources.
• Links to University Definitions:
  • UC Berkeley
  • The University of Southern Mississippi
  • University of Michigan
  • Indiana University Bloomington
  • Stanford University

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Great Plagiarism Tutorials

Plagiarism tutorials help make sure that you know not only the basics of plagiarism, but also many of the details like formatting guidelines for citations and citing things like e-mail. These are the top 5 plagiarism tutorials out there. They're all easy-to-understand and comprehensive. We've listed some of the unique advantages to each below the title.

1. The University of Southern Mississippi

• provides quizzes before you review the materials, during your review, and post-review
• results of your pre-test and post-test will be mailed to yourself and your professor

2. The University Of Maryland University College

• extremely comprehensive, includes lots of examples and style guidelines
• includes a post-quiz that analyzes your results and tells you which section of the tutorial to go over

3. Indiana University Bloomington

• included links to real plagiarism cases
• you can print out a confirmation certificate for you professor after taking the test

4. California State University San Marcos

• provides "checkpoints" after each section to test your knowledge before moving on
• spells out the benefits for the student for using proper citation (beyond avoiding plagiarism)

5. The University of Texas at Arlington

• includes examples of plagiarism in real life, outside of the classroom (like the New York Times and government documents)
• good use of charts and diagrams

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Useful Resources

Here are some extra resources to help you understand plagiarism and how to avoid it. It includes writing style guides, examples of plagiarism, extra tutorials, and more.

• The Ultimate Style Guide Resources for MLA, APA, Chicago, and CSE: This comprehensive resource lists over 60 university and general resources for all of the major formatting styles.
• Plgaiarism.org: This site has definitions, FAQ, statistics, citing guidelines, and more.
• UMCNJ List of Tutorials: This site provides a list of 12 great plagiarism tutorials.
• Princeton University's Examples of Plagiarism: This site provides three examples of plagiarism with comments explaining what the student did wrong and what the students should have done.
• The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL): This great resource center includes information on writing, grammar, formatting, ESL (English as a Second Language), and more. Pay extra attention to the "Avoiding Plagiarism" and style guide sections.
• Plagiarism in Colleges in USA: This site provides information on plagiarism law, cases of plagiarism in colleges, policy suggestions, and more.
• SFSU Student Concerns and Complaints: This has advice for students who have complaints about plagiarism policies or cases.

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