Prevention

=**Plagiarism Prevention - SC**=

Educators, including teachers and media specialists, can help to prevent **plagiarism** before it happens. The media specialist can be a significant force in creating an ethical school culture. They can provide this leadership in many ways, from developing lesson plans and resource lists that support such an environment to educating teachers regarding technology and student trends.

Both the teacher and the media specialist can instruct students in proper research skills like note-taking, paraphrasing and bibliographic citation. In addition, students are less likely to **plagiarize** when they are asked to create authentic products that require them apply their new knowledge and understandings. In contrast, poorly structured assignments ask students to simply transfer information from one format to another.

Note-taking skills
The key to good note taking is the ability to differentiate important facts or ideas from less important details. Below are ideas for lessons to help students (yes, even high school students) practice extracting important information.
 * American Library Association [|Top Ten Techniques to Teach Note Taking]
 * Education World [|5 Different Lessons for Teaching Note Taking]
 * Big 6 [|Phone Message Exercise] is a great attention-getting activity for any age

For some students **color-coded notes** may be effective. This technique uses colored post-its or regular post-its with colored markers. Each color represents a different topic. Not only does this allow learners to organize and rearrange ideas but also to engage with the text by using post-it notes to pose questions and comments right on the text.

Additional [|notes organizers]can be found on Jim Burke's English Companion website.

Paraphrasing skills
The ability to take someone else's idea and put it into one's own words (paraphrase) is an important skill that students need to continually practice. Teachers and media specialists can begin by ensuring that students are able to read for understanding. This can be done by using reading comprehension techniques and providing students with resources at their appropriate reading levels.

[|Owl at Purdue]provides some excellent tips for helping students to paraphrase effectively and it explains the difference between [|quoting, paraphrasing and summarizing].

Bibliographic Citation
"I didn't know how to cite it!" is a common excuse for plagiarism. Helping students understand the importance of citing sources in addition to what information actually needs to be cited can help to prevent plagiarism.

Begin the **discussion** about citing sources by asking the class why it is so important. You can guide students to the following points: 1. citing sources prevents plagiarism, 2. shows how much research you have done and 3. allows your reader to follow your citations and do their own research.

The following websites provide examples of **what information actually needs to be cited**:
 * Owl at Purdue [|Is it Plagiarism Yet?]
 * Indiana University Writing Tutorial Services explains "[|Common Knowledge]"

Whatever **citation style** your school uses, students need to be provided with the proper resources to follow a citation format. Below are online citation guides for two of the most common citation styles: American Psychological Association (APA) and Modern Language Association (MLA):


 * Owl at Purdue [|APA Style Guide]
 * Owl at Purdue [|MLA Stule Guide]

[|Noodletools] is a great tool for helping students **learn the elements of a citation** and build a proper works cited list. Noodletools' MLA citation builder is free but sign in is required. Schools can subscribe to receive additional services including citation builders in other formats and note cards builders. [|Noodletools KnowledgeBase] also gives educators some tips on how to teach citation building for grades K-20.

Authentic Assignments
Authentic assignments require learners //apply// their new knowledge and understandings to real life problems or situations. In contrast, assignments that are easy to plagiarize typically only require that students transfer information from the source to their final product. Educause Learning Initiative provides an [|overview of authentic learning].

One way to find out if your assignment is easy to plagiarize is to type keywords of your assignment into Google or another search engine. Is the "answer" among the results? If so you may want to adjust your expectations of students. Here are some tips for creating authentic assignments that are hard to plagiarize:
 * Plan your assignment around a real life problem (also known as [|project-based learning])
 * Have students collect data and analyze it
 * Have students assume real life roles and make decisions within their roles
 * Plan an assignment that students can share with the community or younger students.

For more tips and specific ideas, Jon Mueller of North Central College, Naperville, IL. provides an online [|Toolbox for Authentic Assessment]. Between 2004 and 2007 SUNY Oswego published an open access journal called [|Journal of Authentic Learning]  