To learn more about how multilingual students learn how to incorporate external sources in their writing, please see the work of Boise State University Professor Casey Keck. Her article, “Copying, Paraphrasing, and Academic Writing Development” provides helpful information on multilingual student summarization practices.
- Incorporating others’ ideas into one’s own is an essential student learning outcome across the curriculum.
- However, a standard definition of plagiarism within the university setting is often not conveyed clearly to students, regardless of their educational backgrounds. Oftentimes, the concept of intellectual property varies across the globe and notions about what constitutes plagiarism are culturally embedded.
- Since notions of what constitutes plagiarism are not universal and are often contextualized, it’s important to recognize, due to the cultural nature of plagiarism, that it takes time to learn these academic attitudes.
- Faculty should be proactive in preventing plagiarism. There are two key ways to help students understand plagiarism:
- Defining what plagiarism means within your course;
- Designing a course that discourages plagiarist activity.
How can I help students understand what plagiarism is?
- Build in time to define what plagiarism means in your discipline and within the course including the specific forms of assessment students will be doing. While this is in part covered in your department’s CID course, it may be worth reviewing once per semester, regardless.
- Visit the Council of Writing Program Administrators’ Statement on Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism for a comprehensive definition of plagiarism and a list of best practices for educators.
- Include Boise State’s Student Code of Conduct statement on academic dishonesty and discuss it at the beginning of the course.
- Craft a lesson plan to illustrate what plagiarism is to students. You may want to focus on accidental plagiarism, in particular. Check out these helpful lesson ideas for teaching what plagiarism is, brought to you by the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University.
How can my course design help discourage plagiarism?
- Implement multiple drafts for a writing project. This allows you to get a sense of student writing throughout their revision process and encourages preparedness. Additionally, it tends to make for better student writing across the board.
- Discuss with students how paraphrasing and summary operate within academic writing. Checkout these lesson plan ideas for teaching students to avoid plagiarism in their writing through correct integration of external sources.
- Consider treating incidents of plagiarism on a case-by-case basis. Distinguishing between a misuse of sources and intentional copying of others’ words may create positive teaching moments from student mistakes. Plagiarism Prevention Guide from Middle Georgia State University is helpful for understanding why incidents of plagiarism may occur.
For Further Reading:
To learn more about plagiarism and multilingual students, check out the following articles and books:
- Read “Copying, Paraphrasing, and Academic Writing Development: A Re-Examination of L1 and L2 Summarization Practices” by Casey Keck
- Read “The Myth of Linguistic Homogeneity in U.S. College Composition” by Paul Kei Matsuda
- Read “Teaching to Prevent Plagiarism: How to Promote Good Source Use” by Diane Pecorari
Exam Accommodation
Writing and reading in a second language can take considerably longer than writing and reading in one’s native language. As exams aim to evaluate student learning of course content, this can, at times, be a barrier. As such, faculty can make exam accommodations for multilingual students. The English Support Program (and second language acquisition specialists, generally) recommend several forms of language support including exam accommodations.
Why should I consider exam accommodations for multilingual students?
- Even fluent bilinguals rely on their knowledge of both languages when reading in one. This often results in slower text-processing, to a lesser or greater degree for different students (Carlo and Sylvester, National Center on Adult Literacy Technical Report TR96-08).
- The Conference on College Composition and Communication’s Statement on Second Language Writers and Writing states that “second language writers are still in the process of acquiring syntactic and lexical competence – a process that will take a lifetime.” As such, exam accommodation allows students to demonstrate their knowledge of course content without unnecessary limitation based on acquiring language conventions that take a lifetime.
How do I make exam accommodations?
- Allow nonnative English speakers some extended exam time. 20-30 minutes for every hour that the test is normally scheduled is usually enough, although it can take some students significantly longer than that.
- Arrange a different room for testing. Allow nonnative English speakers to take exams in a separate room. Some students find it helpful to read questions and multiple-choice options aloud as a way of processing the language.
- Bilingual dictionaries can also be a helpful accommodation. Most students recognize that using such dictionaries too much during their testing cuts their test time short. It is helpful for them, however, to quickly remind themselves of the meanings of crucial non-specialist vocabulary like “exception” or “model” or “demographic.”
- In writing intensive courses, we do not encourage the use of translation software, since it can radically alter the meaning, and a person with limited fluency in English would not only not catch the difference but also not be challenged to use his or her language knowledge to come up with a creative solution to expressing the meaning they want.
How can exam accommodations be included in my course design?
- One option for time accommodation is to ask a smaller number of questions per exam. This may allow a native speaker of English might finish in a fraction of the allotted time but allow a nonnative speaker of English to complete the exam without additional time.
- Create take-home exams or group exams for all students. With the latter, students collaborate as teams, with each member of the team responsible for a different set of material.
To learn more about multilingual students’ language use and how that impacts assessment, read Tony Silva’s 1993 article “Towards an Understanding of the Distinct Nature of ESL Writers.” If you have further questions or would like to consult with the English Language Support Program, please follow this link to get in contact with us.