Here at BYU-Idaho, students pledge to live by a code of honesty. It is surprising, then, when instances of plagiarism are brought before the dean of students.

As unfortunate as it is, Kathy Holt, department chairman of the English Department, said that plagiarism is a problem at BYU-I.

“Most [plagiarism occurrences] stem from students plagiarizing inadvertently,” Holt said.

Most students think they only have to list a source if they use a direct quote. However, Holt said paraphrasing and claiming an idea from a source as one’s own is also plagiarizing.

Inadvertent plagiarism involves “the inappropriate, but non-deliberate, use of another’s words, ideas or data without proper attribution.

“ Although not a violation of the Honor Code, it is a form of academic misconduct for which an instructor can impose appropriate academic sanctions” as defined by the Academic Honesty Policy of BYU-Idaho.

Holt said for the most part, it is not difficult for teachers to recognize plagiarism. “Usually a teacher will recognize that the wording isn’t [the student’s] own and has been lifted from another source.”

English professor Darin Merrill assigns in-class writing assignments to allow him to determine a student’s style of writing and how advanced he or she is. When a student turns in a paper that is “radically different” from his or her usual writing style, it “sends up a red flag,” Merrill said.

“When the language is perfect and the vocabulary is clearly out of their league, I’ll run it through turnitin.com, which does an algorithmic analysis of the paper,” said Merrill. He also uses Google search engine to check for specific phrases that he suspects are plagiarized.

Christopher Dennett graduated from BYU-I in December 2005 and now teaches at Parma High School in Parma, Idaho. He recently failed a quarter of his students on an assignment because of plagiarism after specifically instructing the students to cite all of their sources. Dennett said typically freshmen and sophomores in high school are more guilty of plagiarism, as opposed to the upper-class students.

“They haven’t learned how to work yet, and maybe they haven’t learned what the costs are,” Dennett said. “Juniors and seniors realize how much work goes into [a paper] and how they would feel if it were stolen.”

Merrill has found this to be true among college students as well. “I have only had one case of plagiarism among upper divisions. Everything else has been at the freshman and sophomore levels,” Merrill said.

Depending on the seriousness of the incident, a plagiarist might merely be reprimanded by a teacher or recommended to the dean of students to be placed on probation or dismissed from school.

Although this might be seen as too harsh of a punishment to some, Merrill views plagiarism as no less than a crime.

“It is, in my mind, theft,” Merrill said.

What bothers Merrill most is that students who plagiarize expect to get the same grade as the other students who did the work for it. Merrill said this demonstrates an “utter disregard” for other students.

“Learning is a cooperative endeavor, not a competitive endeavor, and that kind of disregard is scandalous,” Merrill said.

Jim Richards is also an English professor at BYU-I. He feels the university itself is harmed by students’ plagiarism.

“When students plagiarize, they are attempting to receive credit for work they did not do. This is a severe type of academic dishonesty that, if not taken seriously, could harm the university’s credibility and the student’s integrity,” Richards said.

To prevent plagiarizing, Holt advises students not to get discouraged and to make good use of their resources. She suggests students ask for help and use the library database. When she attended the University of Idaho, one of her professors told her that BYU-I has a better database than the University of Idaho or Idaho State University.

“Students need to learn research skills as opposed to Internet Google skills,” Holt said.

Craig Bronson, a sophomore from Idaho Fall, said he feels plagiarism can be easily avoided.

“It’s not hard not to plagiarize. It only takes slightly more work to cite your sources,” Bronson said.