Discouraging Plagiarism

• Talk to your students about academic integrity

• Include a statement or policy about plagiarism on your syllabus

• Make sure students know what it takes to be successful in your class
• Be available for questions and consultations

Creating Plagiarism-proof Assignments

• Choosing Paper Topics

  • Assign narrow, specific topics

  • Use current events
  • Have students draw upon personal experience
  • Assign compare/contrast assignments
  • Assign local topics, or have students choose and issue and apply it to the local area
• The Process
  • Require pre-approval of research topics
  • Don’t allow last minute topic changes
  • Have students write about / discuss how they will proceed with an assignment (have them create a research plan)
  • Require an annotated bibliography or notes taken on a number of sources
  • Have them write an abstract of their paper or project
  • Require an outline or drafts
  • Have students turn in their research plan or portfolio of resources with their final project
  • After the project is done, have them reflect on it. Examples: If you had another week, what would you do differently? What was difficult and why? What did you like and why?
  • Use the’ Everything but the Paper’ model and the ‘Research Log’ assignment stored in our Information Literacy Toolkit: www.lib.utexas.edu/signaturecourses
• Sources
  • Require a variety of types of sources
  • Require recent sources, if the topic supports it
  • Control some of the topics (example: require inclusion of class discussion, interviews, original surveys, a specific article you assign)
  • Require detailed citations, including page numbers
• Change assignments every year
• Stress the real world importance of a task and its relationship to the assignment you are giving
  • The assignment has to have a clear purpose – explain its purpose to the class
  • In smaller classes, invite students to design the assignment with you
  • Doublecheck your assignment with a colleague. Check for clarity and assumptions.
• Explain your assessment procedures to the class
  • Students need to know how they will be evaluated
  • Provide grading rubrics to students when available

Help for Faculty

• Assign or encourage your students to take the Avoiding Plagiarism Tutorial (includes a quiz) at www.lib.utexas.edu/plagiarism

• Adapt the activities created at the UT Libraries: www.lib.utexas.edu/services/instruction/avoidplagiarism.html
  • Peer Mentor Training Manual: Walks through how to talk about plagiarism in a higher education setting with games and discussion starters. Accompanying PowerPoint slides available as well.
  • Links to handouts from the University Writing Center on paraphrasing and using quotations.
• Refer to the International Center for Academic Integrity: www.academicintegrity.org for research on academic dishonesty, tips and advice for faculty, examples of honor codes and policies.