Advice to Students: Plagiarism

It is not the editor’s responsibility to check whether students (and other authors) are plagiarising their sources. If the editor picks it up, though, I believe the editor should make the student (and other authors) aware of that and offer useful advice on how to avoid it.

In most instances, students did not receive any education at any stage of their lives on how to form their own opinions and express themselves confidently. This is a life skill that needs to be taught in homes and in schools.

I had to train myself to do that at an extremely late stage during my postgraduate studies. I would study various sources on the topic I wanted to address and then take a break before coming back and writing down what I had learned about the topic in my own words, while citing the relevant author(s).

The word ‘paraphrasing’ is often used in this regard. The following formal definitions of this term exist:

• [T]o state something written or spoken in different words, especially in a shorter and simpler form to make the meaning clearer (Cambridge Online Dictionary, 2022)
• [To] [e]xpress the meaning of (something written or spoken) using different words, especially to achieve greater clarity (Oxford Online Dictionary, 2022)

These definitions are helpful, but I believe they do not fully express what paraphrasing should be about: expressing your own opinion in your own words after studying a topic. The first instinct students have (and this also applied to me at first) is to look for synonyms of key words in the argument from the source they want to cite so that the words they use would be ‘different’ from the words used in the source. This becomes a mechanical process of swapping words, which is also the process automated by the so-called paraphrasing software students often use.

This does not teach students anything useful in the discipline they are studying. We are in a ‘catch-22’ situation here. Students have limited time to acquire the knowledge and skills for successfully completing their studies. For them to put a brake on the process and try to first acquire the skill of correctly paraphrasing, before continuing their studies is virtually impossible. Thus, I have empathy for students resorting to this mechanical process in the hope that they would not be accused of plagiarising.

What we need is a formal process for teaching students this skill at university prior to the start of their first year. Most universities are currently trying to do this, but this is not enough. This skill needs to be taught at school so that students arrive at university already equipped with this skill. I have googled to see whether this is happening at schools in South Africa, but so far, I have been unsuccessful in finding anything formal.