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Story time
My husband is a copywriter. He is a good one, creative, wordy, concise, and has all the characteristics you want in a good copywriter. He has a lot of work, and he writes a lot. His texts are in first positions in Google, and he wrote most of them way before ChatGPT conquered the internet.
So, recently we’ve been talking about plagiarism, and my husband decided to check some of his old texts in the software. And what do you think? The software showed that his texts are 10% AI plagiarised. How is it even possible if those texts are years old?
Well, basically it means, that ChatGPT used his texts for references since they are in the first positions in Google, and now they are ChatGPT-produced content…interesting, isn’t it?
While I am sure this kind of confusion will be resolved in the future, plagiarism is a rather significant problem that concerns not only copyrighters but also educators. In my view, plagiarism is one of the critical issues we face when grading our students’ work.
If only it was only copy-paste
So when do you plagiarise? – basically, when you copy-paste someone else’s words or even rephrase them, leaving changed sentences in the same order as in the original text without providing a reference to this text.
You can read a nicely-written article about plagiarism on Grammarly (see the link under the post)
I think the most unexpected point for me is self-plagiarism. You cannot use your own words twice. You can quote yourself, but you cannot copy-paste your idea, it is considered to be as bad as copying someone else’s. So be careful and let your students know.
How not to plagiarise?
So how to help your students to stay clear of plagiarism?
Give them these simple rules:
- Don’t copy, analyse the idea and apply it to your context
- Always reference the sources you have used
- Make sure you don’t copy paste your own work
- Check your texts using the software – a simple Google search can help you with that
- Use AI as a generator for ideas, not as a writing tool
If your students follow these simple rules, they will get the original texts, and you, hopefully, less headache.
How to avoid plagiarism in ESL homework?
Before assigning writing as homework, do a couple of writing exercises in class and grade them. This way, you will be familiar with your students preferred writing style, richness of vocabulary and typical mistakes.
After getting to know your students, it will be crystal-clear, who of them worked hard on their assignments, and who used external sources. It’s only fair to let them know, you will be checking if they are cheating, so they know what to expect.
Let me know what you think in the comments