It's rampant among undergrads - we piloted Turnitin and discovered that it's the norm for students to weave chunks of text from the web into papers. They consider this research. Often try to cover themselves by citing a bunch of sources at the end. The question is what percentage is word for word, and Turnitin tells you - generally from 15-30% is low, 30-50 is moderate, and over 50% is more blatant plagiarism....
Even setting specific paper topics does not help too much, the students know how to dig out online working papers, reports, discussions... And after all, plenty of students are happy to settle for the B- or C grades that come from not following the guidelines too closely... Grad level we found less plagiarism, but still plenty of it. If you are not catching a few every semester, you are not looking... I used to just use google for suspicious phrases, on a paper with generally poor English - it really stands out for foreign students. But Turnitin revealed that the bigger undetected problem was with English speakers who are better at covering their tracks. Also, google is less use with the various cheat sites behind login firewalls. Many of the sites allow you to trade papers - you get access by posting a paper. Amusingly, I was rejected after submitting an academic paper of my own! They said it could not have been a student paper...so there is quality control! An MBA marketing student I caught out treated me as if it were a customer relations problem and I was a disgruntled customer... "I understand you have some issues with the paper, how can we move toward a satisfactory solution here?" Have fun, David David L. Levy Professor and Chair Department of Management and Marketing University of Massachusetts, Boston 100 Morrissey Blvd., Boston, MA 02125, USA http://www.faculty.umb.edu/david_levy/
