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Plagiarism

Plagiarism is a challenging topic for any professor to address – in terms of how to develop assignments in a way that minimizes the risk of plagiarism, how to determine if a student indeed plagiarized, and, if yes, what consequences the student should face for plagiarism.

First, we recommend that you review the Trinity College formal policy on intellectual honesty, which is outlined in the Student Handbook.

A 2013 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education provides a nice summary of the types of plagiarism and some of the resources available on the web for dealing with student plagiarism.

There are also many web resources that provide guidance on how to design assignments in a way that can minimize plagiarism. A great place to start is with “Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices.” We also recommend the following websites and articles that can help you understand the nuances of plagiarism and how to avoid and detect it:

Faculty should also consider how they will treat the use of generative AI in student writing and may wish to review further resources on this topic.