Daily (go Troian
Volume LXVIII, Number 88
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Monday, March 8, 1976
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By Don La Plante
Plagiarism takes many forms. It ranges from failing to properly acknowledge the source of an idea in a footnote, to taking whole chapters out of a book as part of a term paper, to going out and buying the term paper.
Although all forms of plagiarism are strictly prohibited by the university’s official code of conduct, most peo pie tend to view plagiarism in different ranges of unacceptability.
The most famous—or infamous—form is the term paper sales business. Although the sale of term papers to be turned in for academic credit by a student is prohibited by California state law, the law has been rendered almost valueless through the various terminologies that the firms use.
To avoid a charge of plagiarism, research assistance for this story was provided by Robert Burke and Frank Saenz.
Most firms refer to themselves as research assistance firms and clearly
term paper for his son to help the boy through a class he didn’t care about but had to pass in order to graduate.
Although situation comedies often stray from real life, ifthe experiences of a number of USC students are typical, the television plot may not have been far from the truth. Only the solution to the problem differed.
"If you have a class of 100 people, you probably won't be able to catch a term paper that was bought."
On the show, Lionel Jefferson tore up the paper his father had bought him and wrote his own. In practice, students are turning in the papers they buy or have bought for them. And they don’t seem to be getting caught in great numbers.
“I bought the paper for a class that was a general education requirement. I didn’t care about the class, and I didn’t have time to do a term paper over Christmas. So
is for the student to buy it and turn it in.
“If you have a class of 100 people, you probably won’t be able to catch a term paper that was bought,” said Norman Fer-tig, associate dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
“If you have a small class, the way to avoid the problem is to make the assignment so specific or detailed that they have to do the research. Also, you can’t give the same assignment the following year.
“I also know of a professor at Cal State Los Angeles who worked very closely with students in his class on their term papers. He would have weekly conferences on the progress of the paper, and if the students were having problems he would go to the library with them and spend two or three hours helping them with the research. That really takes a heroic effort and dedication to teaching—and a small class size,” Fertig said.
However, for the student who wants to and has the opportunity, either through the general assignments of the instructor or the very large class size, it is relatively easy to buy and turn in a term paper.
Two of the major term paper mills in Los Angeles are Collegiate Research Systems and Research Assistance Inc. Both state on their material that it is not to be turned in for academic credit.
Most firms offer thousands of prewritten papers on a wide variety of topics at about $2.75 to $3 a page, which comes out to between $41 and $45 for a 15-page paper.
If a student wants one of the prewritten papers all he does is walk into the
company’s office (or order it by mail), select a paper, read it and buy it. The student gets a copy that he can retype and turn in. The companies do not keep records of the people who buy the papers or the classes the papers are purchased for. so a student takes his chances that he will turn in the same paper a professor has seen before.
If a student needs original research, he can get that for about $6 a page, plus a $1 surcharge if it is a rush order.
That way a student can tailor his paper to the particular assignment of the class. However, Fertig sees ways to partially eliminate that problem.
“Make the assignment very specific. And if a number of other papers or assignments were done for the class the instructor can notice the writing style ofthe student and if something dramatically different comes in, he can spot it,” Fertig said.
Anyone caught using plagiarized material or cheating in any way is to be reported to the dean for student life, Robert L. Mannes, so that proper action may be taken to see that it does not happen again. The instructor decides the academic penalty, either an “F” for the paper or the course.
In practice though, the reporting does not take place. Mannes said that in the five years he has been dean, he has gotten about six reports of cheating a year.
Mannes puts the reports in a file and, he said, if a second report should come in on a student, he would call the student in to discuss the problem. So far Mannes doesn’t remember having reports come in on the same student twice.
“Very few faculty seem to either know or follow the rule. In a university this size, it is hard to imagine that there would be only five or six cases of cheating a year. I assume that the faculty just doesn’t know the rules,” Mannes said.
In recent years, there have been many amazing cases of academic plagiarism uncovered at universities across the country. Perhaps the most amazing was when a person had his Ph.D. revoked
when it was discovered that he had copied his dissertation directly from that of another person.
The only way that fraud was uncovered was when the professor who had written the dissertation first came to the school where the second man had copied it and happened to notice the title among the list of dissertations that had been done at that institution.
Mannes told of a recent case here where a student had received a grade of “A” in a course based on a term paper in a cinema class. It was later accidentally discovered by a teaching assistant that the paper was actually a few chapters of a doctoral diss-eration. The grade for the student was suhseauentlv changed to an “F.”
However, not all plagiarism can be called intentional or is necessarily lacking in educational value.
“In high school, students don’t really learn how to write term papers. They get accustomed to the idea of taking thoughts and ideas without giving credit for them and they continue that practice in college. The practice isn’t right, but it isn’t intentional on the part ofthe student,” said Joe Kertes, assistant dean for student affairs in the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
“Actually some formsof plagiarism may be meaningful learning experiences for the student. When you have a student give a book to a secretary and tell her to type from page three to 75 and then turn it in, there is no learning in that.
“But when a student gets a number of books and then writes a term paper after going through a number of sources, but
doesn’t give credit, it’s probably a meaningful learning experience, even if it is done improperly,” Kertes said.
A number of professors at USC have run into the problem of plagiarism and have found different ways to handle the problem.
John Wills, associate professor of history. said that it is easier to detect a plagiarized paper in a small class because the professor knows how a student writes.
Wills once received a paper from a student that had been turned in previously. When he brought the student into his office the student told him he had obtained
"In high school, students don't really learn how to write term papers. They get accustomed to the idea of taking thoughts and ideas without giving credit for them and they continue that practice in college."
the information from the library. After Wills accused the student of plagiarism, the student never came back to class.
Gordon Berger, assistant professor of history, said that he once received a paper that was written in a style that the student was not capable of.
“I asked the student to spell a number of words in the paper,” Berger said.
The student couldn’t spell the words and he didn’t receive credit for the paper.
Berger also said that the professors are subject to the same publicity for term paper sales that students are.
“We find the same advertisements on our windshields that the students do,” Berger said.
He said that a professor could then order the catalog to try to insure that a student would not be able to slip a purchased term paper by him.
(continued on page 2)
specify on the research papers they provide that their papers are not to be turned in for academic credit but are for research only.
Recently, the problem of term paper sales was the subject of an episode of the television situation comedy, The Jeffer-sons. In the episode, the father bought a
I went out and brought one typed it up, and turned it in,” said one student. (All the students interviewed vho admitted turning in purchased term papers asked that their namec not be used for obvious reasons.)
To catch the student who turns in the purchased term paper is not as easy as it
How was I supposed to know that the term paper I bought was written by my prof ten years ago???
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