Did you know?

• It doesn't matter if you intend to plagiarize or not! In the eyes of the law, and most publishers and academic institutions, any form of plagiarism is an offense that demands punitive action. Ignorance is never an excuse.
• If a plagiarist receives more than $2,500 for copyrighted material, he or she may face up to $250,000 in fines and up to ten years in jail!
• Plagiarism is almost always a symptom of other educational problems. Students who perceive instructors to be concerned for students and actively involved in the learning process are less likely to engage in dishonesty.
• If the professor seems indifferent or if the subject matter seems unimportant or uninteresting, students feel less moral obligation to avoid cheating.
• Plagiarism hurts everyone involved:
  • plagiarists do not acquire the skills legitimate work would teach them, and risk failure and expulsion.
  • classmates who have worked hard for their grades have to compete with plagiarists for jobs and admissions.
  • teachers have to take time out of the education process to deal with plagiarism.
  • administrators find the principles upon which their institutions are founded undermined by plagiarism, and must devote resources to combating it.

Plagiarism statistics

According to surveys in U.S. News and World Report

• 80% of "high-achieving" high school students admit to cheating.
• 51% of high school students did not believe cheating was wrong.
• 95% of cheating high school students said that they had not been detected.
• 75% of college students admitted cheating, and 90% of college students didn't believe cheaters would be caught.
• Almost 85% of college students said cheating was necessary to get ahead.

Professor Donald McCabe, leading expert in academic integrity, in a May 2001 study of over 4500 high school students, found the following:

• 72% of students reported one or more instances of serious cheating on written work
• 15% had submitted a paper obtained in large part from a term paper mill or website
• 52% had copied a few sentences from a website w/o citing the source
• over 45% admitted to collaborating inappropriately with others on assignments

In a sample of 1,800 students at nine state universities:

• 70% of the students admitted to cheating on exams
• 84% admitted to cheating on written assignments
• 52% had copied a few sentences from a website w/o citing the source

Kerkvliet, J., & Sigmund, C. L. (1999). Can we control cheating in the classroom? Journal of Economic Education, 30(4), 331-351.

Ashworth, P., Bannister, P., & Thorne, P. (1997). "Guilty in whose eyes? University students' perceptions of cheating and plagiarism in academic work and assessment." Studies in Higher Education, 22(2), 187-203. (EJ 549 250)

from the November 22, 1999 issue of U.S. News and World Report

from The Center for Academic Integrity (http://www.academicintegrity.org/)

McCabe, D. L., & Trevino, L. K. (1996). "What we know about cheating in college: Longitudinal trends and recent developments." Change, 28(1), 28-33. (EJ 520 088)