Plagiarism: Can It Be Stopped?

G. Jay Christensen, 
Business Communication Quarterly, published online 13 April 2011

PLAGIARISM CAN BE CONTROLLED, not stopped. The more appropriate question to ask is: What can be done to encourage students to “cheat” correctly by doing the assignment the way it was intended? I have lived my professional teaching life with the philosophy that if students are given a chance to cheat, they may accept that opportunity. Cheating by college students continues to reach epidemic proportions on selected campuses, as witnessed by the recent episode at Central Florida University, where more than 200 seniors cheated on a midterm  examination. I applaud the professor who, in his strategy management class, harangued the students about their need to come forward and admit their cheating. Plagiarism is only one form of cheating and is usually defined as using someone else’s words or ideas as your own without giving credit to the original. >>>