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Opinion: The Pointlessness of Plagiarising

thepurpleonion

By Laura Martens


AI Generated Photo
AI Generated Photo

Plagiarism in several forms is extremely common in schools and the methods used by students to plagiarize can easily change as technology continues to develop. The internet makes all types of information readily available to students with just a few clicks which can make it very tempting for students to not do their own work. 

Getting into the habit of plagiarism can be detrimental to students who plan to attend college. By cheating their way through high school, they are making it nearly impossible for themselves to remember information they could need for their major. The consequences of plagiarizing in High School (view Central DeWitt Academic Integrity Policy at the bottom of this article) are fairly relaxed compared to the consequences of plagiarizing in college, which often leads to expulsion from the institution. 

Students who plagiarize are not only harming themselves by not learning the material they need for the future, but they are also putting their teachers in the uncomfortable position of having to accuse them of plagiarism and setting an unfair standard for their fellow students who do their own work.

The types of plagiarism that seem to occur the most often and are the easiest to catch are direct and accidental plagiarism. 

Direct plagiarism is when a student copies an answer straight from another source and turns it in as their own. Central DeWitt High School teachers have varying opinions on whether plagiarism has grown with the popularity of Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

Mr. Schwartz (Social Studies) and Mrs. Mercado (Language Arts) do not believe they have seen an increase in plagiarism since students have learned to use AI: “Plagiarism has always been a thing. Since the advent of the internet, it definitely went up but AI I don’t know necessarily increased it all that much,” says Mrs. Mercado

Mr. Fisher (Language Arts), Mr. Donovan (Social Studies), and Mrs. Wilke (Language Arts) agree that AI has likely made it easier for students to plagiarize. Mr. Fisher describes the increase he has noticed, saying, “Throughout my career, it would only happen once or twice a year, so it was pretty rare. But, just this semester alone, within the first four weeks, I caught four kids trying to pass off ChatGPT as their own.” 

Mrs. Wilke says, “I would venture to guess that for all the kids I catch, there are probably a couple of kids that don’t get caught. So I’m guessing that, yeah AI probably makes it a little easier for kids to get away with it now.” 

All the interviewed teachers use a similar method of approaching students they suspect of plagiarism; “If I suspect someone of plagiarism, especially non-AI versions, I copy and paste the suspect’s sentences into Google and then I just find the website they got it from, I print it out and staple it to their paper and hand it back to them. There’s not a discussion because there’s nothing to talk about, it’s very evident,” explains Mr. Schwartz. 

Mr. Donovan also does this when someone copies from a website but he also describes the method he uses when he suspects a student of using AI saying, “I’ll guess their prompt and usually it’s just copy and paste of what the question is, and then I’ll put those side by side.”

In recent years, AI has gained a bad reputation for being used by students to cheat. While this issue is very real, it could become avoidable by teaching students how and when to appropriately use AI. Mrs. Mercado explains how to use AI responsibly saying, “It’s a thought partner; it shouldn’t write your papers, but it can absolutely be part of the discussion, so to speak.”

Accidental plagiarism is quite common and can usually be avoided by teaching students how to properly cite sources; “Improperly citing something, I see as not being plagiarism, I see it as a lack of skill” says Mr. Schwartz. When one of his students incorrectly cites something, he talks to them about fixing the mistake so it doesn’t get them in trouble in the future. 

No matter how much they are warned about it, there will always be a chance that students will take the risk of being caught plagiarising for the possibility of getting a good grade. The best way to lower the chances of students plagiarising, however, is educating them on how to properly cite sources and teaching them that AI can be used as a tool as long as they don’t directly copy from it. 


View the Central DeWitt School District’s Academic Integrity policy here:

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The Purple Onion | School Newspaper | Central DeWitt High School | DeWitt, IA

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