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
Recent Harvard Scandal
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/31/education/harvard-says-125-students-may-have-cheated-on-exam.html
Fareed Zakaria
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/business/media/scandal-threatens-fareed-zakarias-image-as-media-star.html?pagewanted=all
Kylie Jenner
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/38079452/make-up-artist-accuses-kylie-jenner-of-plagiarism-over-campaign-concept
Ariana Grande
https://www.seventeen.com/celebrity/music/a25991748/ariana-grande-7-rings-backlash/
- 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.