Sherry Chang

Thomas Keil

Rusty Maldonado

Nikki Troung

Taeja Wilson

To Plagiarize or not to Plagiarize, That is the Motivation

Introduction San Francisco State University is home to over 27,000 students from across the

country as well as the world. Each student has a different background, which is why not all of

them chose to attend the university for the same reasons. Our group was given the assignment to

find out what students motivations were for coming to the university and if there are and

parallels to that and plagiarism. If not, we were to find out what is the driving force behind

students plagiarizing and how does it affect them. In-depth and personal interviews with students

on the campus revealed their motivations for plagiarizing as well as the process of the act. We

also compared student’s experiences and motivations for plagiarizing with those of students from

Susan Blum’s research with are written in her book, “My Word! Plagiarism and College

Culture”. What motivates students is a very big influence on how they act in college. Surveys

have been handed out and collected to find out what the students are really doing here and why.

We will discuss how they view plagiarism and if any of them have done it, or more importantly

why they did it. The motivations that drive our students have influences on the level of

plagiarism we find within our University and it is these motivations which we seek to reveal.
Methods In order to find out students motivations to conclude how their motivations influence

rather or not they plagiarize, we conducted interviews as well as passed out surveys to a few

students on campus. . For surveys, we asked many different San Francisco State students of

different nationalities and backgrounds so that we could have representations of a lot of students

on campus. When writing the survey, the class as a whole discussed the general questions that

should be asked on the survey, afterwards we got into our group and came up with specific

questions (Refer to Appendix: Section A). These questions related to our topic of student

motivations and allowed students to tell us the information we needed in or to come up with

those results. The interviews were done with students the group members had a little relationship

with because it was easier to ask them about plagiarism and have them answer us truthfully.

Interviewees were told that their names would not be used, because of the fear that they would

get caught or in trouble with the University or current professors. Our topic was student

motivation so the questions we had for the interviews been about if they plagiarized and the

reasons why they plagiarized (See Appendix: Sections B and C). The interviews started off by

the students talking about their background, why they came to this school, and what they plan on

doing both here and when they leave. Afterwards, the students were asked if they had ever

plagiarized and if so, why and what were the consequences, if any, along with similar questions

pertaining to plagiarism and the individual. Some weaknesses that we had were people claiming

that they plagiarized but they did not, like patch writing and that most students that were

interviewed were also mainly female. These weaknesses affect our findings because the

misinterpretation of plagiarism might have resulted in data that was to some degree not accurate

as well as the male perspective as well as experiences did not play as big of a role as the female’s
did. However, the answers that we did yield from the surveys and interview did include very

interesting and ironic.

Findings When we composed a simple random sample of forty four San Francisco State

University students we asked a series of questions concerning their attitude towards plagiarism.

The first of our goals were to reveal if they themselves had ever plagiarized, and if they had, in

what way? We spread a list of all of the popular types of plagiarism including the purchasing of a

paper, copying text from the internet, copy the text of a friend, reusing a paper from a past

assignment, copying text from various origins without proper practice of citation, having

someone other than you write the paper for you, writing a paper from someone else, or simply

failing to use citation altogether. We also included an answer box for other types of plagiarism

not specified another for those who were unsure if they had plagiarized, and another for those

who have never plagiarized. Of the forty four, one answered that they had indeed purchased a

paper for an assignment, one checked that they had copied text from the internet, six had copied

the text of another person, ten had reused writing assignments from their past, three had copied

from other texts and failed to cite them, seven students had allowed another person to write their

assignment for them, six had written assignments for others, and nine had simply failed to cite

their sources. Four students answered the question unsure, eighteen revealed that they had never

plagiarized, however not one student answered that they had plagiarized in any way not

specified. Therefore, among these students the most popular form of plagiarism was the reuse of

past written assignments; nearly 23% of the students had admitted to this type of plagiarism. The

percentage of students who had never plagiarized added up to nearly 41%. However, when you

subtract those who had never plagiarized and those who were unsure from the forty four who

were surveyed we find that one in every two students had plagiarized in some form or another.
These forty four were then asked if they knew the University’s policy on plagiarism. 70% of

these students said that they indeed knew the University’s policy when it came to plagiarism

which is rather ironic considering half of these students had plagiarized. Another complexity was

shown when the students were asked to rate their approval of plagiarism on a scale of one to five.

One represented strong disapproval and a five was a strong approval of plagiarism. When we

looked at the numbers we were shocked to see that of the forty four surveyed, thirty one circled

either disapprove or strongly disapprove of plagiarism however, of the forty four half admitted to

plagiarizing in some form in their writing academic career. Our last question concerned whether

the students believed that plagiarism was a problem here on this campus. They were given a

scale of one to five, one being not a problem to five signifying a significant problem. Here it

seems the students were on the fence, since 41% of the students answered with a three which

signified that they were somewhere in the middle of seeing plagiarism as a campus problem or

not. Along with the surveys, each group member picked a student to interview about their

personal motivations for the choices they make, so when asked the motivations for coming to

San Francisco State University and motivations for plagiarism we discovered some interesting

results. We found that these one in two students who do plagiarize (at least the ones we

interviewed) do not have secret agendas to fool their English teachers nor a hidden motives to be

plain defiant. As a result, we have found that the motivation for plagiarism often comes from the

lack of motivation to write.

Discussion After reviewing all the data from the surveys and multiple interviews our group came

up with some very interesting data. A common misconception about plagiarism is the lack of

knowledge of the University’s policy on plagiarism. It turns out that 70% of students do know

what the policy is at our schoolwhich means 30% of the school’s population does not know what
the policy is, however on our survey half of the students admitted to plagiarizing. This is

important because a large majority of the students who are breaking the rules are well aware of

what they are doing. Only four students of the fourty four given the survey said that they were

not sure if they have plagiarized before. Although it may have been ignorance as to why some

students plagiarize, many of them do break the rules on purpose. What motivates the people who

plagiarize on purpose if they know what they are doing. In Susan Blum’s book, My Word, she

thinks that if “grownups set guidelines; the young resist them.”(Blum, 2009). She had concluded

that in college the professors or “grownups” made plagiarism a rule, which in the eyes of a

student is merely a suggestion. Students do not take suggestions very well and they will do

everything in their power to disobey the professors because the students are “young” and like to

rebel against authority. Although this may be true at Notre Dame which is where Blum did her

research, the interviews done at San Francisco State University showed that rather than trying to

deceive the teachers in order to prove a point or to be resistant of rules, the they did so out of

laziness. The survey revealed that 23% of students admitted to reusing past written assignments,

which is most likely because students do not want the work they actually do to go to waste so

they use it as much as they can, so they change it slightly so the teachers will not be able to

recognize it. This type of plagiarism can be confusing for students because they assume that

since they wrote the paper, the credit should still be or will begiven to them. Also, many students

would rather spend their time doing other things besides writing so they break the rules in order

to get it done as fast as possible with as little work as possible. Most students dislike the topics

that are assigned there is no motivation to write and almost no motivation to do well. The

interviewed were not enthusiastic about their writing topics and therefore did not write them and

often hired others to do the unwanted job. One student spoke of the consequences of getting
caught who had written a paper for another student for a small fee of twenty dollars and a

Subway sandwich. However, when the other student turned in the plagiarized paper, he received

a no credit and it was clear that the teacher had noticed the crime because their writing style and

voice had no similarities. Usually, a large percentage of students who are caught plagirizing at

the university were caught because teachers were able to diffrentiat the different writing syles.

However, some who write papers for others have taken more caution in doing so, as described in

Mamatas article “The Term Paper Artist”,who says that when he writes other’s papers, he

usually categorizes the competency of the client in order to determine the type of languaged used

in the paper(Mamatas,pg1). From multiple offenders of plagiarism we are able to conclude that if

students know that they can get away with plagirizing, they will continually do it until they have

motivation to stop such as getting in trouble or getting a 0 on a paper. If students know they can

get away with plagiarism it is a big motivating factor. Although 70% of the surveyed students

said they disapprove or strongly disapprove of plagiarism, the lack of consequences make it

harder for students to resist the temptation to plagiarise. A lot of the students who claim they

disapprove of this type of academic dishonesty are the ones who are doing it.

Conclusion All of the information we found has showed that plagiarism is a problem at San

Francisco State. Finding this was simple compared to figuring out how to help fix what half of

the students are doing. Fixing the plagiarism problem should be of high value to the professors,

therfore teachers should try to let students choose what they have to write about because this

might increase their interest. If students like what they are writing about, they will have more

incentive to do it since lack of motivation was the biggest factor. It is hard to get kids to stop

being lazy but if the material stands out then it could change our students attitudes and a positive
change in attitude could be the factor students need to not plagarize. All in all, plagiarism has

been constantly increasing and I would like to see a change in that trend as well as many others.

It looks like the main motivational factor in plagiarism is simply students not wanting to do any

hard work. They would rather pay someone else to do it or just take someone else's work. Some

of the students do it because they do not realize that they are doing it. With a few changes and

some more awareness, the problem can be solved.

 Appendix

Section A: Survey Questions (related to motivations)

1. On a scale from 1 to 5, how much do you approve or disapprove of plagiarism?

2. On a scale from 1 to 5, how significant of a problem do you think plagiarism is at SFSU?
3. Have you ever plagiarized/in what way?
4. Do you know the University's/Major's policy?
5. Do you see plagiarism as a problem?

Section B: Interview Question Strategies

1. A good question to ask for our interview is if students know the policy of plagiarism?

2. If yes, did that motivate them to not plagiarize or did it not bother them?

3. If no, is that a reason they might have plagiarized?

4. Possibly ask them to give you some examples of plagiarism Ex: Writing a part of a
friend’s paper is plagiarism.
5. Have them define what plagiarism means to them? Do they think it should be punishable:
why or why not?
6. Have them give examples where they were tempted to plagiarize but did not, or when
they did plagiarize, what motivated them to do so?

Section C: Interview Questions

1. How would you describe your experience at San Francisco State University so far?
2. What is your major? Why did you choose that major?
3. Are you a first generation college student? How do your parents feel about your college
endeavors?
4. What are your feelings toward education?
5. What do you know about plagiarism?
6. Have you ever plagiarized?
7. If so, what were the circumstances? What compelled you?
8. If you haven't, was there ever a time where you considered plagiarizing?
9. How do you feel about all of this hysteria about plagiarizing and it's evils?
 Works Cited

Blum, S. (2009). My Word!: Plagiarism and the college culture. New York: Cornell University.

Mamatas, N. (2008). The Term Paper Artist. The Smart Set: Drexel University.