By Renate Gebauer, Biology, & Mike Cullinane, Mathematics

Most faculty who assign papers as part of their curriculum in class have noticed that many students, (even juniors and seniors), seem unaware of what constitutes plagiarism. As the Task Force was discussing this issue, we decided that one approach for initiating student reflection about plagiarism, without spending too much time in-class, would be to have students take a short pre-test on this topic. The results of this quick survey may be used as a yardstick to measure what areas need further explanation.

The example printed below can be easily modified to suit the content and documentation style of your discipline. This version was created by the Writing Center tutors and represents the areas most often explained by tutors to students. Please contact pbenay for an electronic version of the plagiarism pre-test.