Postgraduate Plagiarism

I was digging around in the Independent website and I came across this article looking at postgraduates and plagiarism.

According to a JISC report, twice as many postgraduates were guilty of plagiarism in 2008 with an average of 1.19 per cent of postgraduate students involved in cases of plagiarism, compared to 0.67 per cent of undergraduates. This data was supported by statistics from the University of Glasgow.

What was even more surprising to me was that it is students from overseas that tend to plagiarise, with 1.76 per cent of all overseas postgraduate students from outside the EU committing plagiarism, compared to 0.11 per cent of all postgraduate students from the UK.

According to the Independent article, reasons for this discrepancy are primarily cultural since different educational systems handle referencing in different ways, with some systems having very little established framework for doing so. As numbers of overseas students increase, particularly on postgraduate courses, plagiarism issues will naturally increase.

However, an issue only touched on lightly in the Independent article is that of language. I personally think the problem of English as a second language is a key driving force in cases of possible plagiarism. The act of undertaking postgraduate study inherently involves significant reading of other people's work. Not only is it beneficial to reference the work of others, it is entirely and unequivocally expected. But let's be honest, when it comes to writing a thesis or dissertation there are only so many ways you can work references into your text whilst maintaining the flow of the document.

For example, let's say you reference a paper and then go on to discuss that paper for the next two pages. Just how many times do you refer back to the paper again? Are there any rules governing repeated referencing? I don't know, but I do know it bothered me when I was writing my dissertation which included a lot of mathematical derivations which I followed from the work of others, sometimes over several pages.

For those who speak English as a first language the inclusion of references in a well structured system is comparitively straightforward, particularly with the use of referencing software. But for those who are less fluent in English I imagine it is much more difficult to include references in a well structured, well ordered way.

If universities would like to reduce the number of cases of suspected plagiarism I suggest they make sure to discuss the practicalties of referencing in their induction courses.