Should Universities Be Teaching Their Students More About Plagiarism?

As any University student will tell you, plagiarism is something that lecturers will mention over and over again. However, the issue at hand is the simple fact that, of all the teachers telling their students not to plagiarise, only a small percentage will actually teach them what plagiarism is or how to go about avoiding it. Most students can rely on a plagiarism checker to be safe, but should we be teaching our students how to avoid it before it’s too late? We’re exploring exactly that, below.

How Serious Is Plagiarism At University?

The simple answer to how serious plagiarism is at University is a resounding ‘very’. Students that plagiarise are at risk of failing assignments, modules, or even their entire course and for the most part, this is done unintentionally and unknowingly. A student can work for hours on an assignment, submit their piece and have the plagiarism report flag up countless plagiarised words, phrases and quotes simply through inadequate citing or self-plagiarism. In order to solve the problem rather than simply catch it out when it happens, we need to be teaching our students more about what plagiarism is, the consequences it could have on their degree and their professional reputation, and how to properly and effectively cite their sources.

Student’s Don’t Understand Plagiarism Rules

An education research fellow at the University of Otago by the name of Lee Adam conducted a study of 21 students, coming to the conclusion that while most students did have some level of awareness that plagiarism existed, very few of those really understood what it included and were “ignorant of the potential implications of unintentional plagiarism.” While this is a relatively small study, the general consensus seems to be that most students know of the concept, but don’t truly know the details of what this issue is.

Unintentional and self plagiarism are just two of the most common types that can lead to a student’s downfall, so is there truly an argument against teaching students about plagiarism? We certainly don’t think so.

Why We Need To Teach Them

By incorporating dedicated time into the curriculum to educate students about plagiarism, we can better prevent this issue from becoming a serious problem in most cases. While some do copy work directly and claim it as their own with intention of cheating, those that are unknowingly paraphrasing, self plagiarising or even just incorrectly citing sources could be put in a much better position with a little more education.

Waiting until it’s too late to teach students the rules of plagiarism can have devastating effects and put their entire education at risk. Plagiarism is one of the top three issues that students complain about, so why aren’t more educators taking this into consideration?

Whether this will change in the future has yet to be seen, but the answer is clear – education could help to prevent many cases of plagiarism. By providing support and information to our students, we can give them a better idea of how to not only avoid plagiarism at college or university, but also when they move onto everyday life. What do you think?

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