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Despite the surveys that indicate that plagiarism is a serious problem and that as much as 10% of all submitted documents may be plagiarized, the number of reported cases to the disciplinary boards ( Sweden ) is relatively small. During 2003 only 112 students were subject of disciplinary measures due to plagiarism. ( HSV Report 2004:17 R) This is a very small number in relation to the total number of full time students, which is about 250.000. If each student produces two academic documents per year, which totals at 500.000, 112 cases equals as little as 0,2‰.
Based on the result of the surveys on plagiarism it is highly probable that the number of disciplinary cases does not reflect reality and that there is hidden statistics to be considered. A number of factors explain why this might be so.
Low Level of Preparedness
The problem of plagiarism has increased during the recent years. Part of the explanation of this is the rapid growth of the Internet, which has made it a lot easier to find material suitable for plagiarism, for example via paper mills and cheat sites. The hidden statistics may be explained with a low level of preparedness for these negative consequences of the Internet evolution. There has been little time to react and take appropriate action against it.
Varying Views
Different teachers make different judgments on what should be regarded as plagiarism. This may in some extents be explained with lack of information on the problem and the absence of a clear policy within the organization on how to treat suspected cases of plagiarism. This situation may cause teachers to act in a way that creates hidden statistics. Some brings suspected cases to the attention of the disciplinary board, some deals with them on a teacher-student basis and others choose to ignore them.
Time and Resources
It requires time and resources to investigate plagiarism and these are rare commodities to most teachers. One is often forced to prioritize in another direction which makes it hard to detect plagiarism in the first place.
Difficult to Detect
The perhaps most important explanation of the scale of the hidden statistics is that plagiarism can be difficult to detect. In some cases instances of plagiarism may be easily spotted. These are often cases where students copy text straight out of sources that are well known to teachers. In these cases the text itself often gives the cheater away. It may contain references to the original author or easily spotted errors due to different passages of text being cut-and-pasted together from different sources. In some cases however instances of plagiarism may be very difficult to detect. In these cases the student has put some effort into editing the text to make it harder to find the original source. Markers that give plagiarism away (phrasing on a level different from the rest of the document, irrelevant information, specific words etc) has been edited, removed or changed, the source/s has been selected to be impossible or, at the very least, difficult to find for an enquiring teacher – for instance by translating a text written in an other language.
Translation
Sometimes students who plagiarize choose to do so by translating a text from a foreign language. When this is the case it is even harder to find the original source because the teacher has to take into account the formatting and phrasing of the original source. Apart from guessing which language it is plagiarized from.
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