Hamilton Heights High School Library

Tech Tip of the Day -- PLAGARISM!! The Internet has made plagiarism an even greater problem than ever before. Educating students about what plagiarism is and how to avoid it is one step toward preventing this kind of academic dishonesty. Another is to require students to do something original with the research they find. For example, instead of an assignment that is simply finding facts about a person, place or thing, students are required to compare and contrast, draw conclusions, or otherwise use higher-order thinking with the material they find.

There are several sites to help teachers educate, detect, and deal with plagiarism:

• Plagiarism Stoppers: A Teacher's Guide at http://www.ncusd203.org/central/html/where/plagiarism_stoppers.html
• Detecting and Avoiding Plagiarism at http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/plagiarism.shtml -- From IU's research guide, it includes helpful examples of acceptable and unacceptable paraphrasing.
• Avoiding Plagiarism at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/research/r_plagiar.html -- A handout from the writing lab at Purdue on avoiding plagiarism.
• On-Line Lesson on Avoiding Plagarism at http://ec.hku.hk/plagiarism/introduction.htm - - This is an EXCELLENT on-line lesson that gives students specific ways to avoid unintentional plagiarism. It includes examples of student work that allows them to identify plagiarism in practice (note: a request for permission to use material from this site has been made).
• A Guide to Internet Plagiarism at http://www.plagiarized.com/index.html -- This site gives examples of Internet plagiarism and gives teachers and parents strategies to prevent plagiarism and ideas of ways to deal with confirmed cases of plagiarism.
• Plagiarism and High School Students at http://www.csd99.k12.il.us/north/library/plagiarism.htm -- One of several on-line guides to help identify causes and prevention of plagiarism by high school students. This link also includes a list of "paper-mill" sites.
• Plagiarism Guide for Students at http://www.aresearchguide.com/6plagiar.html -- This site is dedicated to educating students on ways to avoid plagiarism.
• Paper Mill Sites at http://www.coastal.edu/library/pubs/mills2.html -- This lists a staggering 250+ sites for students to buy papers online. Fortunately, the same site also include a list of ways to detect plagiarism at http://www.coastal.edu/library/pubs/plagiarz.html. Although written for college professors, the ideas are good.
• Plagiarism Web Quest Lesson for Students at http://mail.nvnet.org/~cooper_j/plagiarism/ -- This is a one-hour lesson for students on what plagiarism is and ways to avoid it. It is a general lesson on intellectual property rights based on music and literature.

Learn More about Using the Internet    If you would like to learn how to use the Internet more effectively, check out the University of South Carolina's Bare Bones Guide to the Internet. If you are interested in more advanced topics, including a wonderful guide to searching the "invisible web", check out the University of Albany's Internet Tutorial .

Fun Internet site not to miss -- The Perlinger Moving Images Archive at http://www.archive.org/movies/movies.php -- Ok, maybe you, too, are too young to remember watching the Cold War era educational film, Duck and Cover, where Bert the Turtle explains what children should do in the event of an atomic attack, but you might actually remember some of the others films in this amazing collection. Titles aimed at 50's era high school students include, Are You Popular? and a very frank boys health education short called, As Boys Grow. (Note: If you cannot get these videos to play after downloading, please let me know and I will help you to download a codec that is necessary for playing them on your computer.