Current Examples
How common is plagiarism?
Academic Integrity in High School
The Josephson Institute Center for Youth Ethics surveyed 43,000 high school students in public and private schools and found that:
- 59% of high school students admitted cheating on a test during the last year. 34% self-reported doing it more than two times.
- One out of three high school students admitted that they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment
In a survey of 24,000 students at 70 high schools, Donald McCabe (Rutgers University) found that 64 percent of students admitted to cheating on a test, 58 percent admitted to plagiarism and 95 percent said they participated in some form of cheating, whether it was on a test, plagiarism or copying homework.
Academic Integrity in College and Graduate School
A survey of over 63,700 US undergraduate and 9,250 graduate students over the course of three years (2002-2005)--conducted by Donald McCabe, Rutgers University--revealed the following:
- 36% of undergraduates admit to “paraphrasing/copying few sentences from Internet source without footnoting it.”
- 24% of graduate students self report doing the same
- 38% admit to “paraphrasing/copying few sentences from written source without footnoting it.”
- 25% of graduate students self report doing the same
- 14% of students admit to “fabricating/falsifying a bibliography”
- 7% of graduate students self report doing the same
- 7% self report copying materials “almost word for word from a written source without citation.”
- 4% of graduate students self report doing the same
- 7% self report “turning in work done by another.”
- 3% of graduate students self report doing the same
- 3% report “obtaining paper from term paper mill.”
- 2% of graduate students report doing so
Examples in the News
Recent Harvard Scandal
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/education/harvard-says-125-students-may-have-cheated-on-exam.html
Fareed Zakaria
Kylie Jenner
Ariana Grande
https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/music/a25991748/ariana-grande-7-rings-backlash/
Reflection:
- Why do you think plagiarism is so common in academic settings? What can students and teachers do to encourage less plagiarism?
- In the case of Arana Grande and Kylie Jenner, should celebrities be held to the same standards as academics, why do you feel this way?
- How might journalists who plagiarize be worse than celebrities and students?
Please continue to the Consequences section of this lesson.
Works Cited
"Plagiarism: Facts & Stats." P.org, Turnitin, LLC., June 2017, www.plagiarism.org/article/plagiarism-facts-and-stats. Accessed 11 Feb. 2019.