Student writing skills
Wilhoit (1994) argues that as plagiarism is such a complex concept students do not always recognise when using a writer’s ideas is plagiarism. There is a wide range of resources to help students improve their writing skills and thereby avoid plagiarism. Two that are specifically intended for UTS students are the Avoiding Plagiarism online tutorial resource developed by the ELSSA Centre
http://www.uts.edu.au/teachlearn/avoidingplagiarism/tutorial/index.html
and the BELL Program
http://www.bell.uts.edu.au/awg/
Two student - writing guides written for UTS students are:
Morley-Warner, T. (2000). Academic Writing is ... A guide to academic writing in a university context. Sydney: Centre for Research and Education in the Arts.
Faculty of Business (1999). Guide to Writing Assignments. Sydney: Faculty of Business
Have students look at a plagiarised text and its sources to rewrite it to eliminate plagiarism.
To assist students in understanding how these resources can be applied in your subject provide them with examples of a number of versions of the same passage and show them what is acceptable.
Download an example for you to distribute to your students.
Provide written feedback on drafts of assignments.
Feedback helps students to improve and prevents them from making the same mistakes again. UTS students see high quality feedback as consisting of a clear criteria against which to judge the comments, comments that are detailed and related to specific aspects of their work, and comments that are improvement focused.
Teach note-taking.
Poor note-taking is the primary reason students give for inadvertent plagiarism. Effective note-making from a written text includes keeping appropriate bibliographic details with page numbers and distinguishing between paraphrased and quoted material.
The Learning Centre at UNSW has a series of excellent online resourced including a simple method for making notes written sources available at
http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/onlib/pdf/notemake.pdf
Invite ELSSA Centre staff into your class to discuss academic writing.
There are many reasons why students may not use sources and/or reference according to the academic conventions of their fields of study. Frequently, unintentional cases of plagiarising are due to students’ limited skills in:
| – writing English – taking and making notes – summarising – paraphrasing – discussing critically & analysing |
– citing, referencing and writing bibliographies – reading/interpreting assignment tasks – managing contributions to group work – managing time, workloads and stress – misunderstanding cultural conventions |
Some resources and notes to address these causes of plagiarism are included in this ”resource package”. Further assistance (workshops, individual assistance, credit subject, etc...) for staff and/or students is available from the:
ELSSA Centre, elssa.centre@uts.edu.au,
City Campus, level 18, tower building, phone 9514 2327,
Kuring-gai campus, room 2.522, phone 9514 5160
Provide collaboration guidelines that outline what each student is expected to contribute.
Subject outlines describe to the students what is in your subject, including the nature and extent of collaboration required. The students receive the subject outline in the first week of the semester and the details should only change in exceptional circumstances.
Provide proofreading guides.
As well as spelling, grammar and sentence structure students need to ensure that their references are accurate and formatted in the appropriate style. A guide to student proofreading is available online at
http://cal.bemidjistate.edu/WRC/Handouts/ProofandEdit.html
Describe how to cite electronic sources.
There is a tendency to view materials on the Internet as being in the public domain and therefore do not require referencing. Conventions for many popular online formats can be found at:
http://www.apastyle.org/apa-style-help.aspx
Reference
Wilhoit, S. (1994). Helping students avoid plagiarism. College Teaching, 42(4), 161-165.
