Student research team to present plagiarism findings

Miles Maynes used to be a frequent plagiarizer.

He never got caught. He never felt guilty — until he started scientific research of his own.

“I realized that at some point in the future, I may be publishing my own work,” Maynes said.
In a survey by U.S. News and World Report, 75 percent of college students admitted to cheating.

Five Utah State University students have taken on the task of researching plagiarism, an activity that can result in failing grades and, in serious cases, expulsion.

In November 2011, Jessica Christensen, C.J. Zobell and Heather Haderlie started their work by comparing dissertations. They were looking for incidences of plagiarism. In recent months the group has added Rebecca Feller and Tyson Mertlick to their team. They will present their data at the USU Student Showcase on April 2.

The research team will also be giving three different presentations on the subject at the Rocky Mountain Psychological Association conference in Reno, Nev., on April 12.

“We’ve done quite a bit of coding already and have come across a lot of issues in detecting plagiarism,” said Christensen, who is also the president of the Psi Chi International Psychology Honors Society. “A big part of our study is to show how difficult it is to define plagiarism... because there are so many different perspectives and definitions.”
“Turn it In” is a program commonly used by professors to catch plagiarism among their students. The program compares an uploaded document to previously published material and then provides a list of plagiarized areas. The group is evaluating the effectiveness of programs like these.

“They are very useful to detect plagiarism,” Christensen said, “but it grossly overestimates the amount of plagiarism in any given document, not accounting for common phrases, or methodological and statistical terminology.”

The study may change the way the academic community will define and enforce policies on plagiarism in the future, Christensen said.
Upon the event that a student is caught committing an act of plagiarism, a professor has multiple options. According to USU academic policies, penalties include probation, suspension and expulsion.
In the 15 years he’s spent teaching college courses, Steven Shively, associate professor for the USU English department, has dealt with approximately 18 cases that were serious enough to fail a student.

“My students are mostly English majors and minors; I believe such students know not to lift material extensively from another source,” Shively said.

In a recent situation, Shively reported the violation to the office of the vice president for student services.

“The student had a formal opportunity to appeal my decision, but did not do so,” Shively said.
Maynes said that once he got involved in his own research, he realized how long such work takes, “and how long they spent in the lab getting results and compiling information. To me, their paper didn’t represent anything more than 25 words on a page but to them, that paper represented thousands of hours of work.”

David Thomas, Brie Geller, Mackinzie Hamilton, Marissa Shields, Ashley Howell and Danielle Manley contributed to this report.