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Journal of Language Studies.Vol. 5, No. 1. Atumn 2021, Pages (159-181)
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159
EFL College Students' Plagiarism: An Assessment of their
Undergraduate Research Projects and Perceptions
Dr. Tahsin Hussein Rassul
English Department, College of Basic Education, Salahaddin University-Erbil
E-mail: tahsin.rassul@su.edu.krd
------------------------------------------------
Asst. Instructor: Ihsan Saber Shafiq
English Department, College of Basic Education, Salahaddin University-Erbil
E-mail: ihsan.shafiq@su.edu.krd
Keywords:
- Plagiarism
- Seriousness level
- Reasons
- College Students
- Research Projects
- Perceptions
Article Info
Article history:
Received: 12-10-2021
Accepted: 5-12-2021
Available online
23-1-2022
Abstract
Owing to vastly increasing practice of plagiarism at university
level, it is vital that university teachers understand students’
beliefs about plagiarism and the nature of plagiarism at their
institutions. This article investigates senior EFL college
students’ perceptions of plagiarism seriousness and reasons
for plagiarism via utilizing a questionnaire comprised of two
sections. Furthermore, it focuses on assessing the students’
practice of plagiarism in their undergraduate research projects
through first using ‘Turnitin’ program to check similarity
index percentage, and then manually checking plagiarism
types. Face validity of the questionnaire and the inter-rater
reliability for manual checking were estimated by SPSS. The
current research is restricted to a sample of 53 college
students at the English Department of College of Basic
Education/ Salahaddin University-Erbil in the Kurdistan
Region of Iraq for the academic year 2020-2021.
Additionally, 29 of their undergraduate research projects were
randomly selected for assessment. This study depends on a
mixed method approach via adopting both qualitative and
quantitative research designs. To achieve the aims of this
research based on the collected and analyzed data, the
researchers responded to five study questions.
Results revealed that there is inconsistency in the similarity
Journal of Language Studies.Vol. 5, No. 1. Atumn 2021, Pages (159-181)
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index percentage of their research projects. Moreover, not
only were the practiced types of plagiarism found, but also the
most common type of plagiarism was highlighted in their
research projects. In addition, the students viewed some types
of plagiarism as more serious ones based on the found mean
of each type. Among 27 reasons, 14 reasons were considered
as the most common reasons of plagiarism based on the found
percentage. Finally, the study offered some recommendations
for university teachers on how to improve students’ academic
integrity and deter students from committing plagiarism acts
in the future.
Turnitin
SPSS
23-1-2022
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27
1. Introduction
Nowadays due to the computer revolution, the practice of plagiarism has
dramatically increased. Besides, one of the ethical and big academic issues in higher
education is students’ plagiarism and how to avoid it. As a result, strict measures are
currently being used to combat it at the university level globally.
Based on research results, a rising number of university students face academic
dishonesty which is considered unacceptable by academics (McCabe & Bowers,
1994; Diekhoff, et al., 1996). Park (2003) conducted a study where 6000 US students
were surveyed. The research results showed that from 63% to 87% (based on
academic discipline) of students had faced academic dishonesty during their
university study.
In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, there is scant attention to research on university
students’ views of and reasons for plagiarism and on assessing undergraduate
students’ research projects. Thus, the current research results may implicate main
causes and types of students’ plagiarism in their undergraduate research projects, and
eventually suggest some strategies to detect and prevent plagiarism for the university
academics. The current article investigates students’ views on what is deemed
plagiarism and what causes plagiarism in their undergraduate research projects.
Additionally, it assesses their research projects to show the rate and types of
plagiarism.
Howard (1995, p. 799) defines plagiarism as “the representation of a source’s
words or ideas as one’s own.” She also indicates that plagiarism happens when
someone fails to provide quotation marks or block indentation for exact quotations;
fails to cite the sources of his/ her ideas; or uses the phrasing of his or her sources
Journal of Language Studies.Vol. 5, No. 1. Atumn 2021, Pages (159-181)
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with some changes in grammar or word choice regardless of acknowledging the
source
1
(Howard, 1995).
Besides, plagiarism is one of the practices considered by universities to generate a
lack of academic integrity which is “a term used to describe a practice that involves
knowingly taking and using another person’s work and claiming it, directly or
indirectly, as your own” (Neville, 2007, p. 28).
The word ‘work’ implies something produced by another person and published in
any tangible form, but someone else claims to be his/ her own original work. Neville
(2007, p. 28) states that the word ‘work’ also involves assignments ordered and
bought from websites which are then presented to an institution by the buyer as his or
her own original work. As local cases of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), it also
includes assignments produced by or bought from a writing service, print or
photocopy shop, experienced person, or alumni which are then claimed by someone
as his or her original work in an institution.
Furthermore, Wang (2008, p. 743) defines plagiarism as “using someone else’s
work (words and thoughts) without attribution.”
The researchers provide their own definition of plagiarism in this study as “it is
representing someone else’s words or ideas (partially or fully) as someone’s own
work without properly acknowledging the source”.
Based on literature review, plagiarism has been tackled in research in various ways
due to the complexity of its relevant attributes and factors. Among students’
characteristics which implicate the probable incidents of committing plagiarism are
‘motivation’, ‘achievement’, and ‘personality’ (Rettinger & Kramer, 2009; Williams,
et al., 2010). Additionally, students’ viewpoints on the ethical norms and
considerations of academic dishonesty are investigated in another study (Colnerud &
Rosander, 2009). Research has also implicated the instructional style as the reason for
plagiarism (Barnas, 2000). Besides, some studies focus on the technology-related
causes of plagiarism, such as ‘easily copying and pasting online materials’ (Wang,
2008; Trushell, et al., 2011).
2. Students’ Perceptions of Plagiarism
Research has indicated that many lecturers are confused about what causes students
to commit plagiarism acts: carelessness, ignorance, misunderstanding, confusion, or
poor referencing practice (Neville, 2007). On the other hand, they will be very angry
as they see students have copied extensively from a source without acknowledging the
source (Ibid).
There are many studies conducted to investigate students’ views of and/or reasons
for plagiarism in their assignments including:
A study conducted by Howard (1995) in America shows that learners usually
understand that the used sources in their assignments need to be cited but do not
always cite them due to a variety of reasons, such as facing with an enormous
workload, having easy access to materials, pressure to pass on degree courses,
likelihood of copying from a printed source or pasting from the Internet into their
assignments wishing not to be perceived.
In another study by Jones et al. (2005) in the United Kingdom used a questionnaire
to report the views of 91 students from Engineering programmes and 80 students from
Psychology programmes concerning plagiarism and other forms of academic
impropriety in coursework assignments and projects. The results indicated that the
most likely reasons of their plagiarism were: lecturers’ poor capability in identifying
internet sites used by students; and respondents’ highly positive attitudes towards
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copying some sentences out of a textbook, journal, website, or a friend’s assignment
without crediting the source.
A study in America by Roig (1997) manifested that, among 316 undergraduate
students who were asked to classify adapted versions of texts as plagiarised or
paraphrased, half of them regarded six out of eight ‘plagiarized texts’ as ‘correctly
paraphrased’.
In their study, Fish and Hura (2013) asked 626 university students in a
questionnaire to show their opinions and experiences concerning plagiarism. A
majority of respondents indicated that the more the extent of material taken from
another author without citing is, the more serious the plagiarism will be. Besides,
most students supposed that using another author’s ideas is at least somewhat serious.
Furthermore, nearly all of the study participants believed that copying whole work
written by another writer was very serious.
Additionally, a study by Jones (2011) indicated that all learners considered
submitting a whole work of another author as plagiarism; they believed that copying a
limited amount of someone else’s work is less serious than the whole work; three
quarters of them considered buying a paper on the web as plagiarism; 67% of them
indicated that copying a paragraph without quotation marks is regarded plagiarism;
half of them showed that paraphrasing text without citation as plagiarism; plus 17% of
them believed that learners should not self-plagiarize by resubmitting an assignment
in another class.
Furthermore, a study by Kwong et al (2010) aimed at examining the faculty
members’ and students’ perceptions of plagiarism as well as the reasons behind
committing plagiarism acts in Hong Kong. The tools of the study were questionnaire
and interview. The results revealed that the staff members consider most types of
plagiarism as more serious than their learners believe. Besides, the study reasons for
students’ plagiarism were considered as “lack of time to complete the task or poor
time management skills; insufficient reward for (perceived) effort or desire for
efficiency; over-full curricula; fear of a poor mark or of disappointing others; the
perception that they can ‘get away with it’; or the desire to defy authority” (p. 342).
According to a study by Mann and Frew (2006) with focus on learners from China
and Hong Kong, learners from non-English speaking countries can steal idea from
their own native-language sources and translate them into English for their
assignments with the probability of being unaware of the case considered as
plagiarism. These scholars also assert that plagiarism tools cannot detect the text from
a book which is not available on the web. Thus, human intervention is also needed
after checking the similarity report of the tool to check the text out for plagiarism
incidents (Meo & Talha, 2019).
In a distributed questionnaire at a Brazil university on plagiarism, a study by
Guedes and Filho (2015) showed that all of the participated (199 dentistry
undergraduate) learners considered plagiarism as a crime.
To the researchers’ best knowledge, KRI public universities have not made
standardizations of plagiarism detection and penalty, and the students’ undergraduate
research projects and assignments are not saved in an online database to avoid future
plagiarism cases. Additionally, the students’ work is usually not submitted through
plagiarism checkers online.
3. Types of Plagiarism
There are various categories of plagiarism due to the reason that each institution
tends to offer its own definition or interpretation of plagiarism. Howard (1995, p. 799)
mentions that there are three different forms of plagiarism, namely “cheating” (i.e.,
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buying, borrowing, or obtaining work produced by another person and submitting it
under one’s own name); “non-attribution of sources” (failing to properly
acknowledge what has been quoted precisely or cited with modification); and
“patchwriting” ( as Neville (2007, p. 29) describes it as “putting together bits of
sorted, copied texts to make up an unsatisfactory whole”). Stolar (2020) states that
“regardless of the type, whether the plagiarism was done on purpose or by accident, it
is still plagiarism and could still lead to negative consequences”.
Moreover, Streefkerk (2018) states that there are six types of plagiarism, namely
“global plagiarism, paraphrasing plagiarism, verbatim plagiarism, mosaic
plagiarism, incorrect citation, self-plagiarism. This author, as well as some others,
indicate the seriousness level of each type.
3.1. Global Plagiarism
Streefkerk (2018) asserts that presenting another author’s entire work as your own
which is regarded a severe type of plagiarism and “can have severe consequences”.
Howard (1995) calls it “cheating” and also believes that it is the most serious one.
This type of plagiarism involves taking, purchasing, copying an entire work of
another author and claiming as one’s own original work intentionally (Ibid).
3.2. Paraphrasing Plagiarism
This type involves “rephrasing” another author’s text or ideas without
acknowledging the original author and is considered a “serious” type of plagiarism
which is also said to be the most common one (Streefkerk, 2018).
Plagiarism occurs via paraphrasing when a source is read and then some changes in
grammar or word choice are made regardless of acknowledging the source (Howard,
1995). This type of plagiarism is also called “too close paraphrasing” (Yale.edu.,
2015) and “has no place in academic writing” (Bristol.ac.uk., 2015). Roka (2017, p. 4)
calls it “find-replace” as this process is easily done by computer.
Mann and Frew (2006) believe that students from non-English speaking countries
resort to stealing ideas from their own native-language sources through translation.
Translating a text from another language and using it as one’s own work without
citing the original soure is also considerd parapharing plagiarism as the ideas are
stolen in this case (Streefkerk, 2018).
3.3. Verbatim Plagiarism (Copy & Paste; Direct plagiarism)
This type of plagiarism occurs when directly copying a part of an author’s work
and claiming as one’s own without crediting the original source (Streefkerk, 2018). It
occurs when a part(s) of text is copied word-for-word from an author’s work and then
pasted into one’s own work without using citations (Stolar, 2020). According to
Stolar (2020), “copying a section, or a paragraph, or a few sentences” is verbatim
plagiarism and considered “a serious type of plagiarism” due to claiming the
ownership of another author’s source material. Besides, Streefkerk (2018) regards
verbatim plagiarism as a “serious” type as well.
3.4. Mosaic Plagiarism (Patchwork Plagiarism/ Incremental Plagiarism)
According to Streefkerk (2018), it is copying and then blending “phrases, passages,
and ideas from different sources” without citing them “to create a new text”. The new
writer uses “a little more effort than just copying and pasting from a source” to
somewhat rephrase the texts or ideas without giving acknowledgement to the original
authors but it is “easily detected by plagiarism checkers”, e.g. Turnitin (Ibid). Wald
(2020) believes that this type of plagiarism is “a crime”. Moreover, Streefkerk (2018)
considers it a “serious” type of plagiarism. It happens when a new writer takes
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portions of the original sources and stitches them all together to make a whole without
referring to the used sources (Stolar, 2020). According to her, this kind of plagiarism
could involve different incidents, such as:
- Exactly copying a part from a source, but paraphrasing another portion from
another source to come up with a new paragraph without documenting the
sources.
- Copying phrases or passages from different sources and putting them
together in a paragraph to pretend as a new text without acknowledging the
used sources (Stolar, 2020).
3.5. Incorrect Citation
This sort of plagiarism occurs when someone fails to provide all the required
information for citing any used source (Streefkerk, 2018). According to Streefkerk
(2018), this type of plagiarism involves many incidents, including:
- failing to use a correct and consistent format of citation for intext or
bibliography;
- failing to include all the required details for citation, such as page no.,
quotation marks, block indentation, etc.; and
- putting citations in a wrong place whether it is the in-text citation or the
reference list.
Additionally, using information of a secondary source but only citing the primary
source of information is also considered as inaccurate plagiarism (Unikllib, 2016).
According to Neville (2007, p. 29) believes that this sort of plagiarism may happen
due to “the inexperience of the student with referencing or from misunderstanding
about academic conventions”. Therefore, Streefkerk (2018) considers it a “moderate”
type of plagiarism, but is still subject to disciplinary action (Stolar, 2020).
3.6. Self-plagiarism
It means reusing text or ideas from one’s own previously submitted/ published
work and claiming as new work. It can include re-submitting the text or ideas of the
previous paper partially or fully without crediting the source (Streefkerk, 2018).
Furthermore, Roig (2010) indicates that self-plagiarism in education occurs when a
writer recycles his or her previously submitted or published work, partially or fully, in
a new work without providing due acknowledgment for the former work. It is
believed that self-plagiarism is moderate plagiarism as far as partial texts and ideas
are reused unintentionally; but re-submitting the previously submitted work entirely is
considered severe plagiarism (Streefkerk, 2018; Roig, 2010).
Based on their level of severity, all the types of plagiarism, whether committed
intentionally or by accident, are subject to disciplinary actions, such as failure,
suspension, expelling, and putting on academic probation.
4. Methodology
4.1. Participants
To collect data for the present work, the researchers asked the EFL senior students
at the English Department of College of Basic Education, Salahaddin University-Erbil
to respond to a questionnaire in the academic year 2020-2021. The population of
senior students in the English Department is 80 students who were asked to
participate in answering the questionnaire, whereas only 53 of them returned the
questionnaire.
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4.2. The Aims
The present paper aims at shedding light on some issues related to academic
dishonesty in the students’ undergraduate research projects where the amount and
types of plagiarism are targeted to be revealed. Furthermore, the study focuses on
investigating the participants’ perceptions of plagiarism seriousness and of its reasons.
4.3. Research Questions
The researchers need to respond to the following questions pertinent to the
mentioned aims:
1. Is there relative consistency in the similarity index percentage of the
undergraduate research projects?
2. What are plagiarism types in the research projects?
3. Which plagiarism type is the most common one in the research projects?
4. Do students view some types of plagiarism as more serious than others?
5. What are the students’ most common reasons for plagiarism?
4.4. Procedures
First, the researchers designed a questionnaire in Google Forms, and then its face
validity was checked. Next, it was administered to the participants of the study to
show their ideas of both plagiarism seriousness and its reasons. After that, 29 of their
undergraduate research projects were randomly selected and subsequently checked by
“Turnitin”. Finally, the types of plagiarism were manually found in the research
projects, and the reliability was considered.
4.5. Research Tools
In the current study, a questionnaire with closed-ended items was utilized to collect
data. The questionnaire had two sections: the first section with 17 items focused on
students’ estimations of plagiarism seriousness on a scale of four points, namely ‘not
plagiarism’(1), ‘moderate plagiarism’(2), ‘serious plagiarism’(3), and ‘severe
plagiarism’(4); and its second part was about the students’ ideas of their plagiarism
reasons in their undergraduate research projects via using 24 multiple answers in a
single multiple-choice item. The questionnaire was checked with Cronbach’s alpha
reliability in SPSS to estimate the extent of items interrelation internally which was
(0.703) for 17 Likert Scale Items. Besides, Turnitin was used to reveal the extent of
similarity index in the randomly selected undergraduate research projects. After that,
the researchers used the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient to find the consistency of
inter-rater reliability via selecting another university teacher to re-assess each of the
students’ research projects
2
. Consequently, the reliability value of the assessors for
each found plagiarism type was estimated to be highly consistent
3
(See Appendix 1
for more details relevant to this reliability).
5. Data Collection and Analysis
To answer the first research question (Is there relative consistency in the similarity
index percentage of the undergraduate research projects?), the similarity index
percentage was estimated by Turnitin programme for each of the investigated research
projects. In other words, the 29 projects were submitted through Turnitin program to
show whether there is relative consistency in the similarity index percentage of the
projects. The Turnitin estimated results indicated that the similarity index percentage
is inconsistent among the research projects as manifested in Table 1.
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Table 1: The Estimated Similarity Percentage in Each Undergraduate Research
Project
Research
projects
The Similarity
Index Percentage by
Turnitin
The Percentage of
Used Internet Sources
Word Count of
Each Project4
1
59 %
59 %
2957
2
54 %
50 %
4326
3
72 %
70 %
2715
4
57 %
53 %
4440
5
22 %
17 %
3914
6
63 %
62 %
4053
7
65 %
62 %
6003
8
60 %
60 %
5343
9
64 %
62 %
4400
10
50 %
50 %
1374
11
42 %
40 %
4960
12
59 %
58 %
3551
13
21 %
11 %
3311
14
48 %
48 %
2411
15
35 %
25 %
5814
16
25 %
20 %
3418
17
62 %
61 %
3466
18
42 %
40 %
4762
19
85 %
78 %
3156
20
80 %
80 %
3586
21
70 %
58 %
4637
22
78 %
77 %
4708
23
66 %
64%
3592
24
10 %
9 %
3178
25
70 %
70 %
4712
26
45 %
41 %
4248
27
73 %
70 %
4034
28
56 %
53 %
3696
29
65 %
63 %
3191
Mean
55 %
52 %
3930
Dependent upon the results of Turnitin in the above table, one can notice that the
highest similarity index is 85 percent, whilst the lowest rate of similarity index is 10
percent as shown in Table 1 above. This could be attributed to two main reasons
mentioned by students in their responses to the questionnaire, namely: (Item C)
University teachers do not focus on the originality rate in students’ writing
assignments; and (Item D) University teachers do not check plagiarism in the
research projects. (Scrutinize Figure 2, for the percentage of the students’ plagiarism
reasons in each item).
Regarding the second research question (What are plagiarism types in the research
projects?), only four plagiarism types were detected, namely paraphrasing
plagiarism, Verbatim plagiarism, Mosaic Plagiarism, and Incorrect Citation. Due to
lack of an available database for the students’ previously submitted assignments and
research projects, the researchers could not find any incidents of ‘global plagiarism’
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168
and ‘self-plagiarism’ after having run the research projects through Turnitin program
(See Appendix 2, for the snapshots of plagiarism types in the students’ undergraduate
research projects). The detected types of plagiarism and the total rate of each type are
depicted in Figure 1 (See Appendix 3, for more details concerning the frequency of
plagiarism types in each research project).
Figure 1: Frequency of Each Plagiarism Type in Students’ Undergraduate Research
Projects
Based on the number of incidents of each plagiarism type in the undergraduate
research projects manifested in Figure 1, the most prevalent type of plagiarism is
Verbatim Plagiarism making a total of 680 incidents. This is a clear response to the
third research question (Which plagiarism type is the most common one in the
research projects?). The highest rate of verbatim plagiarism could be ascribed to the
reason that it is the easiest type among the four detected ones as it can be committed
by simply copying and pasting from online materials without adding to or modifying
the text (See Table 1, for the highly estimated percentage of used internet-sources in
each undergraduate research project).
With Regard to the fourth study question (Do students view some types of
plagiarism as more serious than others?), the mean of plagiarism seriousness in each
type was calculated by SPSS based on the students’ results in the questionnaire as
displayed in Table 2 (To check the detailed table of frequencies and percentages, refer
to Appendix 4).
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Table 2: Students’ Seriousness Mean of Each Plagiarism Type and of Each
Incident
Plagiarism
Types
Questionna
ire Items
Mean of Seriousness of
Each Incident
Mean of Seriousness in
Each Plagiarism Type
Global
Plagiarism
1
1.66
1.65
2
1.64
Paraphrasi
ng Plagiarism
3
1.70
1.24
4
1.26
5
0.74
6
0.98
7
1.53
Verbatim
Plagiarism
8
1.83
1.55
9
1.26
Mosaic
Plagiarism
10
1.15
1.24
11
1.32
Incorrect
Citation
12
0.45
0.86
13
1.02
14
1.11
Self-
plagiarism
15
0.98
1.06
16
1.00
17
1.19
Mean Seriousness, in Table 2, indicates the extent of seriousness of each
plagiarism type based on the participants’ perceptions estimated by SPSS. Thus, some
types of plagiarism are relatively considered as more serious than others in the
aforementioned table. In other words, students generally believed that Global
Plagiarism (i.e., 1.65) is slightly more serious than Verbatim Plagiarism (i.e., 1.55)
which is also considered to be slightly more serious than the equal proportions of each
Paraphrasing Plagiarism and Mosaic Plagiarism (i.e., 1.24 each), whilst Incorrect
Citation Plagiarism (i.e., 0.86) was regarded the least serious one. Therefore, the
answer to the fourth research question is ‘yes, students view some types of plagiarism
as more serious than others’ based on their responses to the reasons of plagiarism.
Although, there are differences among most of the types of plagiarism, as shown in
Table 2, the learners mainly consider most of the types of plagiarism as ‘Not
Plagiarism’ or almost ‘Moderate Plagiarism’ which are not aligned with the various
seriousness levels of this study literature review
5
.
In response to the fifth research question (What are the students’ most common
reasons for plagiarism?), the second part of the questionnaire was investigated (See
Appendix 5, for the questionnaire items in section B) and the participants’ reasons
were calculated in percentage by PSS as revealed in Figure 2 (See Appendix 6, for the
descriptive analysis of the students’ reasons for plagiarism).
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170
Note: percentages do not add up to 100% because it was a multiple answer question.
Figure 2: Cases Percentage of Students’ Plagiarism Reasons
Reliant upon the data shown in Figure 2, the participants’ highly considered
reasons of plagiarism were highlighted and then regarded as the 14 most common
reasons of students’ plagiarism in their undergraduate research projects, ranked from
the top down:
1. Poor research skills of students
2. poor citation practice of students
3. poor students’ knowledge of what constitutes plagiarism or academic integrity
4. poor research supervision and guidance by teachers
5. limited sources available for doing research
6. students’ problems of (academic) writing skill in English language
7. easy ‘copy-pasting’ from the Internet by students
8. starting to write too late and running out of time soon
9. Students do not think it is wrong to plagiarise.
10. University teachers do not focus on the originality rate in students’ writing
assignments.
11. University teachers do not check plagiarism in the research projects.
12. readiness of others to help students in writing research projects, e.g. photocopy
shops, offices, ghost writing services, cheat sites, etc.
13. Students do not need to learn how to write a research paper, just want to pass
this module.
14. Students have not been appropriately punished (such as, expelled, suspended,
etc.)
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6. Conclusions
Based on the present study results and findings, it has been concluded that there is
inconsistency in the similarity index percentage of the undergraduate research projects
due to two reasons, namely: instructors’ lack of focus on the originality percentage in
the students’ written assignments, as well as lack of checking plagiarism in the
students’ research projects. Furthermore, four types of plagiarism were found in the
students’ undergraduate research projects including paraphrasing plagiarism,
verbatim plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, and incorrect citation. Moreover, verbatim
plagiarism was the most common type of plagiarism among the four mentioned types.
This may be due to the factor that verbatim plagiarism is the easiest type as it can be
committed by simply copying and pasting text verbatim from online sources.
Reliant upon the participants’ perceptions of plagiarism seriousness level, the six
types were considered ‘Not Plagiarism’ or nearly ‘Moderate Plagiarism’ which do
not come in accordance with the seriousness levels of the study literature review
where ‘Moderate Plagiarism’, ‘Serious Plagiarism’ and ‘Severe Plagiarism’ were
employed.
The most common reasons of plagiarism, ranked from the top down, were
perceived as students’ poor research skills; their poor citation practice; their poor
knowledge about academic integrity; poor research supervision and guidance by
instructors; limited sources available for conducting research; students’ problems of
(academic) writing skill in English language; easy copy-pasting from the Internet by
students; lack of time management skills; not feeling guilty about acts of plagiarism;
instructors’ lack of focus on the originality percentage in students’ writing
assignment; the lack of checking plagiarism in undergraduate research projects;
readiness of others to assist students in writing research projects; students’ do not
think writing research projects serves their future career; and they have not been
appropriately disciplined for committing plagiarism acts.
7. Recommendations
To prevent plagiarism, instructors should assist university learners in
understanding what generates plagiarism and how to use information ethically. In
other words, university teaching staff need to inform students of the university
policies on plagiarism through explicitly explaining plagiarism, its permitted
similarity percentage, what the originality report should consist of, and its
consequences in the course syllabus.
Besides, teachers should encourage students to study and master the reading
comprehension skills in order to understand the information presented in the sources
at hand so that they can easily integrate the cited information into their own ideas or
knowledge.
Furthermore, instructors should make students practice various techniques and
solutions to avoid committing plagiarism acts including, information literacy,
critical thinking skills, accurate citations in classroom and self-paced courses. In
other words, university students need to be well-trained in information literacy issues
through practically utilizing various citation techniques such as how to search for
information, how to evaluate such information, and how to use it ethically with
accurate citations and consistent documentation styles in research. Eventually,
students could be deterred from resorting to paraphrasing plagiarism and incorrect
citation.
Journal of Language Studies.Vol. 5, No. 1. Atumn 2021, Pages (159-181)
______________________________________________________________________________
172
In addition, instructors should also help students practice how to come up with new
ideas and also how to make significant contributions to knowledge in research after
having found relevant information from sources. This could be achieved via
practicing critical thinking skills in writing and research because citing information
requires more critical thinking skills than just combining information from different
sources into one prepared paper. As a result, students could be prevented from
verbatim plagiarism and mosaic plagiarism.
University teachers should also utilize students’ samples of plagiarism types
(shown in Appendix 1) for classroom practice so that students can recognize the
incidents of plagiarism and remedy each plagiarism type in the classroom.
Likewise, university should have an online database for students’ written
assignments and research into which a plagiarism-checking tool must be integrated so
that each student can submit his or her own work through a plagiarism-checker into
the online system. Thus, students will be sure that their work is going to be saved in
the online database, and checked for plagiarism incidents and amount not only on the
Internet, but also in the local database. Consequently, global plagiarism and self-
plagiarism could also be avoided.
Though the Turnitin programme greatly supports plagiarism detection, human
intervention is essentially required to pinpoint both the incorrect citation practice and
machine-paraphrased plagiarism.
References
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Appendices
Appendix 1
The Two Scorers’ Reliability for each Type of Plagiarism based on Intraclass
Correlation Coefficient
Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (Based on Average
Measures)
Plagiarism Types
Intraclass
Correlationb
95% Confidence Interval
Lower Bound
Upper Bound
Paraphrasing Plagiarism
0.891c
0.770
0.949
Verbatim Plagiarism
0.939c
0.857
0.973
Mosaic Plagiarism
0.851c
0.683
0.930
Incorrect Citation
0.933c
0.857
0.969
Two-way mixed effects model where people effects are random and measures effects are fixed.
b. Type A intraclass correlation coefficients using an absolute agreement definition.
c. This estimate is computed assuming the interaction effect is absent, because it is not estimable
otherwise.
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Appendix 2
Snapshots of Plagiarism Types in Students’ Undergraduate Research Projects
Verbatim
Plagiarism
Paraphrasing
Plagiarism
Mosaic
Plagiarism
Incorrect
Citation
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176
Appendix 3
The Frequency of Plagiarism Types in Students’ Undergraduate Research Projects
Research
Project
Frequency of Plagiarism in Each Type
Total Rate
of
Plagiarism
in Each
Project6
Global
Plagiarism
Paraphrasing
Plagiarism
Verbatim
Plagiarism
Mosaic
Plagiarism
Incorrect
citation
Self-
plagiarism
1
0
10
35
4
31
0
80
2
0
38
42
12
14
0
106
3
0
10
23
9
17
0
59
4
0
23
44
8
19
0
94
5
0
30
1
5
7
0
43
6
0
26
47
7
30
0
110
7
0
18
66
15
23
0
122
8
0
14
49
1
34
0
98
9
0
7
38
5
14
0
64
10
0
2
10
1
10
0
23
11
0
23
4
6
5
0
38
12
0
5
18
13
26
0
62
13
0
13
1
4
11
0
29
14
0
5
6
9
15
0
35
15
0
35
13
9
10
0
67
16
0
18
4
4
5
0
31
17
0
9
4
10
16
0
39
18
0
9
19
5
23
0
56
19
0
3
40
4
16
0
63
20
0
2
31
3
13
0
49
21
0
2
24
4
39
0
69
22
0
1
30
1
37
0
69
23
0
4
19
5
24
0
52
24
0
13
2
2
17
0
34
25
0
2
27
3
9
0
41
26
0
7
10
6
38
0
61
27
0
9
25
9
32
0
75
28
0
12
21
1
23
0
57
29
0
3
27
2
17
0
49
Total Rate
of
Plagiarism
in Each
Type
0
353
680
167
575
0
Journal of Language Studies.Vol. 5, No. 1. Atumn 2021, Pages (159-181)
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177
Appendix 4
The Descriptive Analysis of Learners’ Results of Plagiarism Seriousness in the
Questionnaire
Plagiarism
Types
Questionnaire
Items
Seriousness of Each Incident
Seriousness of Each Plagiarism Type
Not
plagiarism
Moderate
Plagiarism
Serious
Plagiarism
Severe
Plagiarism
Not
plagiarism
Moderate
Plagiarism
Serious
Plagiarism
Severe
Plagiarism
Fr7
%
Fr
%
Fr
%
Fr
%
Fr
%
Fr
%
Fr
%
Fr
%
Global
Plagiarism
1
9
17
10
18.9
24
45.3
10
18.9
8.5
16.1
11
20.75
24
45.3
9.5
17.95
2
8
15.2
12
22.6
24
45.3
9
17
Paraphrasing
Plagiarism
3
5
9.4
16
30.2
22
41.5
10
18.9
13.6
25.66
19
35.86
14.4
27.16
6
11.34
4
12
22.6
22
41.5
12
22.6
7
13.2
5
26
49.1
18
34
6
11.3
3
5.7
6
15
28.3
26
49.1
10
18.9
2
3.8
7
10
18.9
13
24.5
22
41.5
8
15.1
Verbatim
Plagiarism
8
7
13.2
9
17
23
43.4
14
26.4
11.5
21.7
13
24.55
16.5
31.15
12
22.65
9
16
30.2
17
32.1
10
18.9
10
18.9
Mosaic
Plagiarism
10
14
26.4
24
45.3
8
15.1
7
13.2
11
20.75
24.5
46.25
11.5
21.7
6
11.3
11
8
15.1
25
47.2
15
28.3
5
9.4
Incorrect
citation
12
35
66
12
22.6
6
11.3
0
0
24.3
45.9
16
30.2
8.3
15.7
4.3
8.2
13
21
39.6
17
32.1
8
15.1
7
13.2
14
17
32.1
19
35.8
11
20.8
6
11.3
Self-
plagiarism
15
21
39.6
17
32.1
10
18.9
5
9.4
20.7
39
15.3
28.9
10.3
19.5
6.7
12.6
16
21
39.6
17
32.1
9
17
6
11.3
17
20
37.7
12
22.6
12
22.6
9
17
Appendix 5
Students’ Questionnaire about Plagiarism Seriousness and Reasons for Plagiarism
Hello, Senior Students!
This questionnaire is about plagiarism. It is for a study to indicate the fourth-year
students’ understanding of and reasons for plagiarism in their final-year research
projects. Your assistance is highly considered to respond to the present questionnaire
items.
Note: your responses will be confidential, and used only for this research.
Section A: Plagiarism Seriousness
Please rate the following based on your understanding of plagiarism as ‘Not
plagiarism’(1), ‘Moderate plagiarism’(2), ‘Serious plagiarism’(3), or ‘Severe
plagiarism’(4):
1. Submitting another author’s research paper as your own work
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
Journal of Language Studies.Vol. 5, No. 1. Atumn 2021, Pages (159-181)
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178
2. Buying a research paper from another person or from online to submit as your own work
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
3. paraphrasing another author’s text or ideas without citing the author
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
4. Making some changes in grammar or word choice of a paragraph without citing the source
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
5. Making some changes in grammar or word choice of a paragraph and citing it using
quotation marks
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
6. Making some changes in grammar or word choice of a paragraph and citing it without
using quotation marks
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
7. Translating Kurdish or Arabic text from a source for your research paper without citing the
author
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
8. Directly copying a part of text from an author’s work for your research paper without
citing the source
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
9. Directly copying a part of a text and mixing it with your own ideas in your research
without citing the source
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
10. Using ideas from different sources and putting them together in one paragraph in your
research paper without citing the sources
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
11. Copying parts of text from different sources and putting them together in a paragraph in
your research without citation
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
12. Mixing the styles of citation, e.g. putting together Harvard style with APA style of
referencing in your research paper
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
13. Copying text directly for your research paper without using page number or quotation
marks, but citing the source
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
14. Putting citations in a wrong place, such as using intext citation under the cited paragraph,
or unorganized sources in the list of references
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
15. Reusing your text of your previous assignment in your research paper without citing your
assignment
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
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______________________________________________________________________________
179
16. Reusing your ideas of your previous assignment in your research paper without citing your
assignment
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
17. Re-submitting your pervious work/ paper for your undergraduate research project
a. Not plagiarism
b. Moderate plagiarism
c.Serious plagiarism
d. Severe plagiarism
Section B: Students’ Reasons for Plagiarism
Please tick as many points as you believe could be the causes of your plagiarism in
your undergraduate research project:
A. Students are never caught plagiarizing at university.
B. Students have not been appropriately punished (such as, expelled, suspended,
etc.)
C. University teachers do not focus on the originality rate in students’ writing
assignments.
D. University teachers do not check plagiarism in the research projects.
E. easy access to previously submitted research projects at other colleges or
universities
F. students’ carelessness about writing undergraduate research projects
G. poor students’ knowledge of what constitutes plagiarism or academic integrity
H. limited sources available for doing research
I. readiness of others to help students in writing research projects, e.g. photocopy
shops, offices, ghost writing services, cheat sites, etc.
J. pressure of obtaining higher marks on the undergraduate research projects
K. fear of failing on the undergraduate research projects
L. poor citation skills of students
M. poor citation practice of students
N. poor research supervision and guidance by teachers
O. students’ problems of (academic) writing skill in English language
P. poor reading comprehension skills of students
Q. poor research skills of students
R. students’ heavy workload at university
S. the pressure of writing to strict word limits
T. Teachers do not usually care about citing the sources they use in their lectures,
such as PowerPoint slides and handouts.
U. easy ‘copy-pasting’ from the Internet by students
V. starting to write too late and running out of time soon
W. Students do not think it is wrong to plagiarise.
X. Students do not need to learn how to write a research paper, just want to pass this
module.
Journal of Language Studies.Vol. 5, No. 1. Atumn 2021, Pages (159-181)
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180
Appendix 6
The Descriptive Analysis of the Students’ Reasons for Plagiarism
The Students’ Reasons
Frequencies
Respondent
Percentage
Percentage
of Cases
students are never caught plagiarizing at university.
14
2.6%
26.4%
students have not been appropriately punished (such as,
expelled, suspended, etc.)
23
4.2%
43.4%
University teachers do not focus on the originality in students’
writing assignments.
24
4.4%
45.3%
University teachers do not check the plagiarism in our research
projects.
24
4.4%
45.3%
Easy access to previously submitted research projects at other
colleges or universities
14
2.6%
26.4%
students’ carelessness about writing undergraduate research
projects
20
3.7%
37.7%
poor students’ knowledge of what constitutes plagiarism or
academic integrity
29
5.3%
54.7%
Limited sources available for doing research
27
4.9%
50.9%
Readiness of others to help students in writing research
projects, e.g. photocopy shops, offices, ghost writing services,
cheat sites, etc.
24
4.4%
45.3%
Pressure of obtaining higher marks on the undergraduate
research projects
16
2.9%
30.2%
Fear of failing on the undergraduate research projects
20
3.7%
37.7%
Poor citation skills of students
21
3.8%
39.6%
poor citation practice of students
32
5.9%
60.4%
Poor Research supervision and guidance by teachers
28
5.1%
52.8%
Problems of (academic) writing skills in English language
27
4.9%
50.9%
poor reading comprehension skills of students
17
3.1%
32.1%
Poor research skills by students
35
6.4%
66.0%
Students’ heavy workload at university
19
3.5%
35.8%
The pressure of writing to strict word limits
11
2.0%
20.8%
Teachers do not usually care about citing the sources they use
in their lectures, such as PowerPoint slides and handouts.
20
3.7%
37.7%
Easy ‘copy-pasting’ from the Internet by students
26
4.8%
49.1%
starting to write too late and running out of time soon
26
4.8%
49.1%
students do not think it is wrong to plagiarise.
26
4.8%
49.1%
students do not need to learn how to write a research paper, just
want to pass this module.
24
4.4%
45.3%
CorrespondingAuthor: Dr. Tahsin Hussein, E-Mail: tahsin.rassul@su.edu.krd
Tel: +9647504353954 , Affiliation: , Salahaddin University-Erbil -Iraq
Journal of Language Studies.Vol. 5, No. 1. Atumn 2021, Pages (159-181)
______________________________________________________________________________
181
Notes
1
With the exception of four situations where not acknowledging the source of information is not
considered plagiarism, including: “presenting historical overviews; presenting one’s own experience;
repeating ideas credited earlier such as in conclusions; and reporting common knowledge” (Neville,
2007, pp. 19-20).
2
Since the data are normally distributed and continuous (not categorical), the Intraclass Correlation
Coefficient has been used to find the consistency of inter-rater reliability.
3
The reliability value above 0.8 is considered very good consistency of measuring between two scorers
(Shrout & Fleiss, 1979).
4
The word count of each research project also reveals that the range is between 1374 and 6003 words
which are by far different. The various rates of word count could indicate the deficiency of
departmental policies concerning writing senior students’ undergraduate research projects.
5
If the students’ estimated mean of seriousness is around 1, it is considered ‘Not Plagiarism’; whereas
if their seriousness mean is close to 2, the seriousness rate is regarded as ‘Moderate Plagiarism’; and so
on. The study literature review considers plagiarism seriousness level of each plagiarism type as
‘Moderate Plagiarism’, ‘Serious Plagiarism’, or ‘Severe Plagiarism’ (Check Types of Plagiarism 3.1-
3.6, for more details).
6
The total frequency of incidents of Plagiarism in each research project is mainly based on Similarity
Index percentage of ‘Turnitin’ program as well as the word count of each research project.
7
Fr denotes the frequency of variables.
