When looking at E-Sponsibility and plagiarism in particular, the solutions seem to have two sources. The first sources would be knowledge. Whether students are doing accidental or deliberate plagiarism, neither should exist. Often times students don't fully understand how to cite their sources. They may get confused or frustrated trying to find the correct information to include on a bibliography. Teachers should hold workshops for the students that create a step-by-step tutorial on how to cite the different types of sources. The students need to know how to cite online documents, research, books, encyclopedias, ex cetera and this is often confusing due to the different formatting styles. The students need to stop relying on online generators to create their bibliography and instead need to know how to physically cite the sources.
Students need to be familiar with MLA, Modern Language Association Formatting. This is the standardized formatting that will be expected of the students throughout their academic career. Students need to be confident about where they should look to find the information to include in their bibliography. By understanding how to use In-text-citations, the students are already eliminating possible ways that they might have accidentally plagiarized. Many schools offer writing labs, these labs are successful in helping students learn how to properly cite the sources. The one-on-one attention or small group setting allows the instructor to provide direct feedback and help to the students. The more credit the students give to the sources, the more bases they have covered. But with this in mind, it is important to remember that the student must bring their own ideas and interpretations to the material. The purpose of looking at the different sources is to have the student grow in knowledge and this would not be possible if the student does not interpret the material.
As mentioned before, there are two main sources to solving or preventing plagiarism. The second source lies within technology. When battling plagiarism the Internet often seems like the enemy. It provides students with millions of resources that they could copy and paste from. But this is the wrong approach when looking at the Internet. We can use the Internet against itself, we can use it to catch plagiarism. Websites such as Writecheck.com or Turnitin.com scan the submitted students work against over 14 billion web pages. The online programs compares the work against over 150 million other papers that students have previously submitted. It compares the work to over 90,000 top publications. These programs then provide the teachers with a breakdown of how much of the work was plagiarized. The teacher is able to specifically look at the plagiarized-detected areas and determine the severity of the situation. These two web sites are incredibly helpful and time saving to the teachers, but they do not help the students while they are working on the project. Another program called Scribendi.com helps the students proof read their documents, as well as style check the citations.
The solution to this academic crisis is in our control. If we are proactive and inform the students about what plagiarism is, the consequences, and how to prevent it, then the students will be less likely to do it. Hope is in the near future, but only if we take the steps towards change.
