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Teaching Plagiarism Series

A female instructor in a green dress stands at the front of a tiered lecture hall, speaking to a large group of college students seated at curved desks. Students are actively engaged, some taking notes on laptops, while others listen or raise hands to participate.Teaching Plagiarism: Definitions

When we, as educators, describe plagiarism with metaphors like “literary theft” or “intellectual property,” it can be extremely hard to get students to connect with the idea. Explaining plagiarism gets easier if we couch it in terms of learning and labor. If you’d like to try explanations in that vein, we’ve been using these two at TLI:

  • “Plagiarism is not telling the truth about who did the work.” —Chris Kilgore, TLI
  • “Plagiarism is the opposite of learning.” (Cf. Bertram-Gallant, 2008)

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