Jonas was taking my American History I survey course for the second time. He failed the class in the prior semester because I caught him plagiarizing answers on a take-home essay test as well as the semester research paper. He even plagiarized an extra credit assignment, designed to rehabilitate low scores while offering a unique educational experience: a visit to a local historical site. Jonas could have opted for another instructor. Instead, he selected my class – again. But Jonas had not learned from the past and I again caught him plagiarizing.

Detecting Plagiarism Involves Knowing Your Students

I encourage class discussion and frequently toss out controversial ideas from American history. It isn’t very difficult to generate heated debate on certain residual topics in American history. Such interchanges, however, also help me to gauge the vocabulary and thought processes of my students.

I expect good prose in essays and papers. But when I read perfect constructions with no comma errors – the bane of student writing, I stop and begin to question. I’ve used Blackboard’s Safe Assign feature as well as Turn-it-in.com for research papers, but not on short essays or essay answers to take-home tests.

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