What Should be the EAP Tutor’s Role in the Prevention and Detection of Plagiarism?

Plagiarism, passing someone else’s work or ideas off as your own, is a complex issue and as Macdonald and Carroll (2006) point out there has been a growing awareness of the problem plagiarism poses in academia but the focus has been on deterrence through punishment and detection rather than prevention. This essay argues that the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) tutor’s role is to clarify the expectations of the new academic culture students inhabit but takes a wider view that the onus for detecting and preventing plagiarism should be shared with other academics, the academic institution and the students themselves. Informing students of the expectations of the new academic culture they reside in is vital but equipping students with the skills required for academic writing so that students do not plagiarise is the best method of prevention. This essay also argues that as detecting cross-language plagiarism is nearly impossible alternative methods of assessment should be considered.

The literature on plagiarism either discusses the issue of plagiarism and why students plagiarise (Sowden, 2005; Macdonald and Carol, 2006; Gullifer and Tyson, 2013; Kauffman and Young, 2015). Details the findings of research which has influenced the way EAP is taught, offering insightful suggestions on how to prevent students committing acts of plagiarism (Leki and Carson, 1997; Ellery, 2008; Raihanah et al, 2011; Fox et al, 2014; Cooney et al, 2018; Wai-Ho Yung and Fong, 2019). Discusses the effectiveness of plagiarism detection software (Park, 2007, Stapleton, 2010; Youmans, 2011) or details cross-language plagiarism (Potthast et al, 2011; Barron – Cedeno et al (2013).

Gullifer and Tyson (2013) outline that students, both home and international, are ignorant as to what constitutes plagiarism and that there is a need to teach academic integrity to all students. An EAP tutor’s responsibility is to define what constitutes plagiarism during both pre-sessional and in-sessional courses and discuss it with international students but other academics need to raise awareness too whilst the university needs to make sure that its policy is freely accessible thus a holistic approach can be taken. An awareness of Sowden’s (2005) findings would help stakeholders understand different attitudes and approaches to writing which may result in unintentional plagiarism. Sowden (2005) found that Chinese and Japanese students feel that by adding their own voice or thinking critically about what an expert has written dilutes the strength of the knowledge they have gained whereas the expectation in Western academic culture is to take what you have read and transform it in a way that demonstrates you have understood and have your own opinions on the topic (Raihanah et al, 2011). An EAP tutor’s role is to highlight this contradiction and equip their students with the critical thinking, note taking and academic writing skills required to adjust to the new academic culture they inhibit.

Students might plagiarise because the writing techniques they attained on general English courses prior to entering university are insufficient (Wai-Ho Yung and Fong, 2019). Leki and Carson (1997) observed that transforming text to avoid plagiarism is a major issue for graduate students which requires academic writing skills which challenge their linguistic proficiency and flexibility. Ellery (2008) echoes Leki and Carson (1997) when she suggests that students have a poor understanding of technical matters related to academic writing which means that the writer cannot establish an authorial voice. Fox et al (2014) go on to add to these claims that students find it difficult to write academically in their second language. EAP tutors can help their students to both establish an authorial voice and avoid plagiarism by equipping them with these skills (Cooney et al, 2018). This is why universities offer both pre-sessional and in-sessional courses to help students transition from general English to academic English. The success students go on to achieve prove these courses are effective but more could be done in terms of language support. The paradox universities have is that academic language support lessons cannot carry credits so they are optional. If they were mandatory then all students would be rewarded for improving their academic English and not expertise in their field. However, due to the higher fees paid by international students it could be argued that universities should do more so that international students are able to fully demonstrate their expertise and gain distinctions rather than merely passing.

Detecting plagiarism has changed immensely over the last 20 years. Prior to the digital age there was a sole reliance on marker vigilance which put both a practical and moral responsibility on the marker (Park, 2007). Plagiarism detection systems have changed this to an extent but still rely on human judgement and therefore are not infallible (Stapleton, 2012). Software solutions also struggle to detect plagiarism in computer programming, technical writing or from obscure sources (Youmans, 2011). Current solutions are monolingual and cross-language detection is still in its infancy (Potthast et al, 2011). As Barron-Cedeno et al (2013) highlight there is no large scale corpus of cross-language academia in existence and it could be argued that it is easier than ever for international students to plagiarise by using machine translation tools taking an unknown text in their native language and translating it into English, potentially passing off the entire test as their own. This raises the question as to how academia can prove that a student has plagiarised as the translation tools students use to cheat are so complex that they can bypass monolingual plagiarism software. We therefore may need to consider other ways to assess students.

It is important for EAP tutors and other stakeholders, including students, to have an understanding of why and how students plagiarise so that it can be prevented. Making international students aware of the expectations of the new academic culture they reside in and equipping them with the tools they need to craft pieces of academic writing allows the EAP tutor to play their part in preventing plagiarism. As discussed detection software has its limitations and may never be fully effective in detecting and preventing plagiarism. Instead academia could mitigate the damage plagiarism does by changing the way it assess students by moving away from methods of assessment which are susceptible to plagiarism, to methods which are less susceptible such as exams, a form of assessment in which it is much harder to plagiarise in. An EAP tutor’s role could then shift to equipping students with the writing techniques they need to pass exams. These classes would be paid for by the higher fees international students pay thus giving them better value for money, greater academic support and potentially higher marks.

References

• Barron-Cedeno A., Gupta P., and Rosso P. (2013) Methods for cross-language plagiarism detection. Knowledge-Based Systems, Volume 50, pp.211-217.
• Cooney A., Darcy E., and Casey D. (2018) Integrating reading and writing: supporting students' writing from source. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 15(5) pp.1-18.
• Ellery K. (2008) Undergraduate plagiarism: a pedagogical perspective, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(5), pp.507-516.
• Fox J., Cheng L., and Zumbo B. (2014) Do they make a difference? The impact of English Language Programs on Second Language Students in Canadian Universities. TESOL Quarterly, 48 (1), pp.57- 85.
• Gullifer J., and Tyson G. (2014) Who has read the policy on plagiarism? Unpacking students' understanding of plagiarism. Studies in Higher Education, 39 (7), pp.1202-1218.
• Leki I., and Carson J. (1997) Completely Different Worlds: EAP and Writing Experiences of ESL Students in University Courses. TESOL Quarterly, 31 (1), p.39-69.
• Kauffman Y., and Young F. (2015) Digital plagiarism: An experimental study of the effect of instructional goals and copy-and-paste affordance. Computers and Education 83(4) pp.44 -56.

• Macdonald R., and Carroll J. (2006) Plagiarism—a complex issue requiring a holistic institutional approach. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 31(2), pp.233-245.
• Park C. (2004) Rebels without a clause: towards an institutional framework for dealing with plagiarism by students. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 28 (3), pp.291-306.
• Potthast M., Barron-Cedeno A., Stein B., and Rosso P. (2011) Cross-language plagiarism detection. Language Resources & Evaluation, Volume 45 (1), pp.45-62
• Raihanah M., Ruzy S., Zalipour A., and Mustaffa M. (2011) Developing a Critical Response, Avoiding Plagiarism among Undergraduate Students. Procedia – Social and Behavioural Sciences 18, pp. 517 – 521.
• Sowden C. (2005) Plagiarism and the culture of multilingual students in higher education abroad. ELT Journal, 59 (3), pp. 226–233.
• Stapleton P. (2012) Gauging the effectiveness of anti-plagiarism software: An empirical study of second language graduate writers. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 11 (2), pp.125 – 133.
• Wai-Ho Yung K., Fong. N (2019), Learning EAP at university: perceptions of high-achieving first-year ESL undergraduates. ELT Journal, Volume 73 (3), pp.306–315.
• Youmans R. (2011) Does the adoption of plagiarism-detection software in higher education reduce plagiarism? Studies in Higher Education, 36 (7), pp.749-761.