Of all the things I teach with regard to the research process, teaching students how to avoid plagiarism is probably the most challenging.  

As edtech blogger Med Kharbach notes, with the "boom in digital technology, plagiarism  has been elevated to the ranks of serious epidemics. In academia it gets even worse. More students are growing dependent on copy paste culture."

He's right.  Our digital natives, having known only the Internet their whole lives, see absolutely nothing wrong with copying and pasting information from the Internet and into their word-processing document.  Of course, they don't yet understand the consequences of their actions because they don't really take it seriously.  Can "borrowing" someone else's words be considered a crime?  Simply put, yes, I tell my students as I share with them plagiarism's clear definition.  If caught plagiarizing, I explain to the my students that, at best, they'll receive a failing grade for their hard work; at worst, a failing grade for the class, suspension, or even expulsion.  

I save the plagiarism lesson for the end of the unit, right before I take the reins off the kids and let them get started on their research project.  After devoting five-plus lessons to proper research techniques (understanding copyright, fair use, and public domain; citing sources; evaluating websites, and keyword searching), we finally arrive at discerning the subtle differences among summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting.

With younger students in 4th and 5th grades, understanding the pitfalls and dangers of plagiarism can be an abstract concept, which is why I use this simple and age-appropriate lesson from Common Sense Media called "Whose is it, Anyway?"

For students in grades 6-8, however, fully and clearly understanding what plagiarism is and how it can--even if you're unknowingly guilty of it--have lasting and deep-reaching consequences, is a necessary skill.  The need to break the kids of the "copy-and-paste" mentality before they get to high school is critical.  So here's how I approach the concept for students in grades 6-8:

Research Chunk #5
Paraphrase, Summarize, or Quote?

Pre-Class (aka "flipping the classroom")

1. Watch this video about paraphrasing & summarizing.
2. Test yourself by Paraphrasing Topic Sentences.  Complete the interactive only once and then email me your score!
3. Practice summarizing by doing these three activities. 

In-Class

1. Summarizing, Paraphrasing, Quoting: What's the Difference?  (see image below)
2. Incredible Shrinking Activities: Paraphrase, summarize, & quote this passage and using the "Incredible Shrinking Notes" idea from Randy Seldomridge's blog.

Post-Class (homework)

1. Review what we learned today by watching "Paraphrasing: What You Need to Know"
2. Practice: Do the Paraphrase Craze interactive.
3. Continue working on your note-taking for your research paper.  For each source used, submit (1) summary, at least (5) paraphrases, and (2) quotations.
4. As you research, remember to cite your work!

This is the lesson plan that has worked for me.  I've tweaked it over the years.  Of course, you may want to tweak it for your own use, so here are some other resources you might want to review for use in your classroom:

• Paraphrase Examples from the Purdue OWL
• Quoting, Paraphrasing, & Summarizing from the Purdue OWL
• Plagiarism tutorial from Simon Frasier University
• Plagiarism quiz from Simon Frasier University
• Plagiarism scavenger hunt for middle school students
• Top sites for teaching students about plagiarism
• Plagiarism video from Common Craft
• Citation video from Easy Bib

If the students still feel the need to plagiarize, the following are some free plagiarism checkers for teachers:

• The Plagiarism Checker
• Plagiarisma

And, finally, students will need to cite their work, as I've discussed in a recent post.  Luckily, in this day and age, they've got a plethora of bibliography generators to do it for them:

• Ottobib
• Citation Machine
• BibMe
• EasyBib

One final note: the image below is something I created on my own, but it's loosely based on an image a colleague forwarded to me about a year ago.  If anyone out there knows the origin of the image, please let me know ASAP so I can give that person credit...I don't want to be guilty of plagiarizing!

image above via BLaugh

If you follow me, you know I've been blogging lately about my research unit for grades 4-8.  

​Because it's such a time-consuming yet very important process, I like to take it slooooowwwly with the kids.  

All too often there's just not enough time to go through the painstaking process of teaching our students the logical, organized, and linear method of properly conducting the research process.  I think we've all assumed at one time or another--and I've been guilty of this myself!-- that our students know enough about Googling things to figure it out for themselves, or we've (sort of) addressed the issues--plagiarism, citing, etc.--as they arose.

I cannot stress enough the need to allow you and your class time to properly follow the necessary steps of the research process.  I myself like to "chunk" the process into manageable steps: understanding copyright, fair use, and public domain; citing sources; evaluating websites; keyword searching; and avoiding plagiarism (to be addressed in a future post).  

Today, I'd like to address keyword searching.  Obviously, with the Common Core State Standards stressing critical-thinking skills, reasoning, and evidence collection skills, it makes sense to teach the research process instead of simply assigning a research project.  Our students are going to be expected, as mandated by the CCSS, to "gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources" (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.6.8).

Keyword searching, then, is important for gathering "relevant information."  And frankly, it saves a lot of time when done correctly, and that's usually how I sell it to my students--who resent having to do research in the first place, anyway! 

I also like to use the Internet to my advantage: there are others before me who've created some amazing lessons to teach students how to conduct a proper keyword search, so why reinvent the wheel?  


Research Chunk #4
Effective Keyword Searching

1. When my colleagues ask me for online resources related to the research process, I always direct them to this incredibly helpful video from the Teaching Channel: "Improving Research Skills with Effective Keywords."  The teacher in the video, Olga Ramos, uses some fun and interesting scaffolding strategies with her students to help them identify and use precise vocabulary to improve Internet searches.  You could certainly adapt these ideas for use in your classroom.  
2. If I'm teaching keyword searching to students in grades 4-5, I like to borrow the ideas found at the Common Sense Media website.  This is a simple introductory lesson that shows strategies to increase the accuracy of keyword searches.  As a cooperative learning activity--or homework--assign this activity from ReadWriteThink.
3. For students in grades 6-8, I use this lesson plan from the New York Times Learning Network, specifically the Warm-Up and Activity.  If time permits, and depending on skill level, I like to accomplish the final activity described, creating a page "for a class guide, in booklet or wiki form, on how to use Internet search engines effectively for research, to be made available to the school community to help other students."  The students enjoy the creativity aspect of it as well the authoritative aspect of it.
4. Of course, it's always beneficial to go right to the source, so I've been exploring the lesson plans found at the Google Search Education site and developed by Google Certified Teachers and the Search Education team.  Lessons are categorized as basic, intermediate, and advanced, so they can be tailored to the abilities of your different classes.  Keep in mind, however, that these lessons are Google-specific, so if you're using Bing or Yahoo!, then this site may not be for you.

For fun and daily practice, I LOVE this site, A Google a Day.  Google provides the question, and you provide the answer, applying your newly-developed keyword search techniques!  You could make this a competition for your students, and they'd love it.  It's pretty addictive!  
If you're interested in having your students complete research modules on their own, then read this.  Finally, they can Google like a boss with this handy cheat sheet.

This is what I do in the classroom.  What have you tried that works?  Please share your ideas and suggestions.  I'm always ready to try something new!

Image via Pixabay