Plagiarism

Plagiarism seems to be a destructive force in the lives of many students. In reference to a Texas PowerPoint slide by a fourth grader, I would detect cheating by first asking the student where she got her information. By familiarizing myself with my students’ abilities in writing, I would know whether this PowerPoint contained her style of writing. The assigned project was to create a slide on Texas history; the student’s slide was about vaqueros. I also notice that the word vaquero is bolded and italicized in one bullet point of her presentation and only italicized in the other bullets.  This inconsistency in her formatting and content would lead me to believe that she copied it from a website.

To discourage plagiarism in my classroom, I would begin an assignment by emphasizing that I want to know what is in my students’ heads and not what is in someone else’s brain. I would then model the process of researching on the computer or in books as well. Modeling provides students with a better understanding of how to achieve what is being requested. A jumping off page can channel what they are researching by only allowing certain pages to be explored for information. In this way, I control the content and know what the students are reading. Therefore, if a student copied material from the website, I would know. Finally, I could monitor the research process by asking the students to take notes over the websites and include the website address.