AUB - ACC - Electronic Plagiarism

Electronic Plagiarism

To plagiarize, according to Longman's Language Activator, is "to copy words, ideas, etc. from a book, article etc. written by someone else, and use them in your own work, pretending that you thought of them" (p. 272).

Plagiarism is very much older than the Internet. However, the ease of accessing all types of material over the Internet has revived in educational institutions the concern of students presenting plagiarized work in their courses. Before the Internet, students would plagiarize by manually copying from books or scholarly journals in the library. Since the mid-1990s texts can be transferred directly from Internet sources into a student's paper. Clearly, the Internet has made it easier for students to plagiarize, but it has also made it easier for instructors to identify plagiarism cases. As a teacher from Virginia pointed out, "Teachers are seeing more plagiarism partly because there is more, but partly because we can find it now" (Goot, 2002).

The Student Code of Conduct of AUB includes cheating and plagiarism among the offenses judged to be academic misconduct. AUB faculty members have the responsibility of openly and thoroughly discussing plagiarism issues with their students and explaining the value of proper acknowledgment of other people's writings and ideas. The consequences of using plagiarized material should also be talked over, not only in relation to the immediate negative effect of breaking the university rules, but also in relation to the long-term negative effect on students' lives. As pointed out by AUB President John Waterbury in the Opening Ceremony of 2003-04:

It is true that in cheating, you cheat yourself. This is not merely a cliché. You deprive yourself from truly learning when you buy or steal knowledge or steal answers. You deny yourself the joy of mastering a subject or a discipline. You deny yourself the development of your mind ... Finally you will cheat society, because you will claim, after graduation, to be somebody who you are not. Your credentials will be partially false, and you are very likely to suspect the credentials of anyone like you (Waterbury, 2003)

This web site includes a large variety of online resources for instructors and students on the causes and sources of plagiarism as well as on tools for identification and strategies for prevention of plagiarism. The Academic Computing Center (ACC) hopes this web site will contribute to AUB's campus-wide efforts to promote academic integrity in the University.

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