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Plagiarism and ParaphrasingCriteria of College andUniversity ProfessorsMiguel RoigPublished online: 08 Jan 2010.
To cite this article: Miguel Roig (2001) Plagiarism and Paraphrasing Criteria ofCollege and University Professors, Ethics & Behavior, 11:3, 307-323, DOI: 10.1207/S15327019EB1103_8
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/S15327019EB1103_8
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Plagiarism and Paraphrasing Criteriaof College and University Professors
Miguel RoigDepartment of Psychology
St. John’s University
In Study 1, college professors determined whether each of 6 rewritten versions of aparagraph taken from a journal article were instances of plagiarism. Results indicatedmoderate disagreement as to which rewritten versions had been plagiarized. When an-other sample of professors (Study 2) was asked to paraphrase the same paragraph, up to30% appropriated some text from the original. In Study 3, psychology professors para-phrased the same paragraph or a comparable one that was easier to read. Twenty-sixpercent of the psychologists appropriated text from the original version, whereas only3% appropriated text from the one that was easier to read. The results of these studies arediscussed in the context of existing definitions of paraphrasing and plagiarism.
Key words: academic integrity, plagiarism, paraphrasing, professors
Although the research into academic dishonesty indicates that certain types of pla-giarism (e.g., borrowing from sources without attribution) may be as rampant asother traditional forms of cheating (e.g., McCabe, 1992), plagiarism by college pro-fessors is thought to be relatively uncommon. The literature of scientific miscon-duct (e.g., LaFollette, 1992), however, suggests that this phenomenon may be onthe increase. For example, according to Parrish (1994), 30% of the investigationsconducted by the Office of Research Integrity, the unit within the Public HealthService that reviews allegations of scientific misconduct, represent accusations ofplagiarism. Of the misconduct allegations investigated by the National ScienceFoundation, the proportion of plagiarism cases is even higher, nearing 50%.
ETHICS & BEHAVIOR, 11(3), 307–323Copyright © 2001, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
Requests for reprints should be sent to Miguel Roig, Department of Psychology, Notre Dame Divi-sion of St. John’s College, St. John’s University, 300 Howard Avenue, Staten Island, NY 10301.E-mail: [email protected]
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Other than case studies of actual incidents of plagiarism (e.g., Bowers, 1994;Miller, 1992), relatively little empirical research exists documenting the natureand extent of this problem. One type of plagiarism that has received attention is aphenomenon known as cryptomnesia, or unconscious plagiarism. Individuals ex-periencing cryptomnesia believe that their newly produced ideas, songs, or solu-tions to a problem are original, but in reality such “novel” products already hadbeen presented by others and, in fact, had been experienced by these individuals atan earlier time (Brown & Murphy, 1989; Taylor 1965). Marsh and his colleagues(e.g., Bink, Marsh, & Hicks, 1999; Bink, Marsh, Hicks, & Howard, 1999; Landau& Marsh, 1997; Marsh & Landau, 1995; Marsh, Landau, & Hicks, 1997) experi-mentally demonstrated the existence of unconscious plagiarism. The results oftheir studies led these authors to argue that the phenomenon is largely due to a fail-ure to activate the necessary cognitive processes needed to monitor the source ofideas. It is interesting that some evidence suggests that unconscious plagiarismmay not be as common when individuals are producing truly original ideas(Tenpenny, Keriazakos, Lew, & Phelan, 1998).
Other research efforts have focused on attempts at ascertaining individuals’ cri-teria for plagiarism. In one set of studies, Hale (1987) gave students pairs of para-graphs in which the first paragraph was identified as the original source and thesecond paragraph as a paraphrased version. In one condition, the paraphrased ver-sions were either correctly paraphrased with an appropriate citation or without acitation. In another condition, the paraphrased versions were verbatim reproduc-tions of the original and were either accompanied by an appropriate citation orlacked a citation. The students’ task was to identify whether the paraphrased ver-sion had been plagiarized. The results of Hale’s studies suggest that, at most, only16% of the students evidenced confusion as to the meaning of plagiarism.
A similar approach was used by Julliard (1994) in an attempt to investigatewhether medical school professors, English professors, journal editors, and medi-cal school students could determine if a paraphrased version of an original sourcehad been plagiarized. Participants received the original portion of text along withrewritten versions, all of which were plagiarized according to standard definitionsof plagiarism. Julliard reported that the majority of English professors, medicalschool students, and nonphysician editors correctly regarded the rewritten ver-sions as instances of plagiarism, whereas physicians (i.e., medical school profes-sors and those journal editors who were physicians) did not consider the rewrittenversions as instances of plagiarism.
Both Hale’s (1987) and Julliard’s (1994) studies indicate that most studentsseem to understand the difference between plagiarism and paraphrasing whensuch instances are clear-cut cases. However, informal observations of students’writing practices have led me to question whether they are knowledgeable aboutmore subtle forms of plagiarism. When grading papers, it is not uncommon to en-counter instances in which students correctly attribute their written material to the
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original author, but their writing is too close to the original. Such paraphrases oftenreveal only minor modifications, such as some word substitutions, deletions, orboth, or superficial structural changes, such as a rearrangement of subject andpredicate.
Most writing manuals that discuss proper paraphrasing (e.g., Aaron, 1998;Hacker, 1994; Nadell, McMeniman, & Langan, 1994; Troyka, 1999) classifythis type of writing as plagiarism and some writers have even given it names,such as “patchwriting” (Howard, 1995, 1999). It is interesting that undergradu-ates may not be the only ones who engage in these kinds of inappropriate writ-ing strategies. Levin and Marshall (1993) noted that, in their position as journaleditors, they have encountered similar writing practices in manuscripts that havebeen submitted for publication.
Given that minor modifications, superficial structural changes, or both to origi-nal text constitute plagiarism according to writing manuals, the question arises asto the exact degree to which text must be modified to be classified as correctlyparaphrased. Few, if any, of the existing definitions of paraphrasing and plagia-rism in traditional writing guides operationalize these terms. In fact, my undertak-ing of a nonexhaustive search for an operational definition of correct paraphrasinghas resulted in only one reference that prescribes a specific minimum number ofwords that a correct paraphrase should have in common with its original source.Under a section titled “Avoid Plagiarism,” Rathus (1993) wrote, “You can usuallyuse a brief string (say two or three words) of your source’s writing without usingquotation marks” (p. 15).
The apparent absence of a widely accepted operational definition for properparaphrasing and the importance of avoiding plagiarism in academic settingsmakes the estimation of such criteria in students and professors seem like a worth-while effort. Such has been the thrust of my research for the past few years and partof the original aim of this series of studies.
Using a procedure similar to that used by Julliard (1994) and Hale (1987), Roig(1997) carried out two studies in which over 500 college students were given aparagraph from a published psychology journal and various rewritten versions.The rewritten paragraphs were modified to various degrees and included a verba-tim version, some lightly modified versions, and two correctly paraphrased ver-sions that had been substantially modified. The students’ task was to examine eachrewritten version, compare it to the original, and determine whether the rewrittenversion had been plagiarized or correctly paraphrased. In contrast to the results ofHale, the responses obtained suggest that students will appropriate relatively longstrings of text with little or no modification and consider such writing as an accept-able paraphrase, as long as a reference citation is included in the rewritten version.
Based on the results of Julliard’s (1994) study and on anecdotal evidence thatsome professors apparently use inappropriate paraphrasing practices that could bedeemed as plagiarism (e.g., Leatherman, 1999; Levin & Marshall, 1993), the pos-
PLAGIARISM AND PARAPHRASING OF PROFESSORS 309
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sibility arises that students’ paraphrasing practices, in part, are derived from thewriting practices of their professors. Related evidence for this position comes froma survey (Dant, 1986) that showed that up to 15% of high school students reportedthat their teachers occasionally had encouraged them to copy verbatim fromsources. Although such teaching practices are likely to be rare at the college level,perhaps professors from certain disciplines, such as English, have stricter criteriafor paraphrasing than professors from the hard sciences, such as chemistry and bi-ology, and these writing practices are somehow conveyed to students. To explorethe hypothesis that professors from different disciplines have different criteria forparaphrasing and plagiarism, the revised version of the Plagiarism KnowledgeSurvey (PKS; Roig, 1995), the instrument used in the second study reported byRoig (1997), was given to a sample of college professors.
STUDY 1
Method
Participants. Of the total number of respondents who provided useful sur-veys, 152 came from the faculties at five academic institutions, whereas the other49 respondents were obtained from an Internet discussion list of teachers of psy-chology known as Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS). The academicinstitutions consisted of a 2-year community college, a public and a private 4-yearcollege, and a public and a private doctoral granting university, all located withinthe New York–New Jersey metropolitan area. Sixty-nine respondents were men,and 63 were women; all ranged in age between 25 and 75 years, with an average of47 years. Some participants did not provide information about their age or gender.
From the private teaching university, 55 useful surveys were returned out of a to-tal of 483 that were sent (11% return rate). Of the 199 surveys sent to faculty from theprivate 4-year college, 20 useful surveys were returned (10%). For the communitycollege, 247 surveys were sent and 34 were completed and returned (10%), whereasfor the TIPS discussion group, 485 surveys were sent and 49 were completed and re-turned (10%). Unfortunately, return rates could not be established for the public4-year college and for the public university because the exact number of question-naires distributed could not be accurately ascertained (see Procedure).
Instruments. The revised version of the PKS1 (Roig, 1995) consists of anoriginal two-sentence paragraph taken from Zenhausern (1978) and six rewrittenversions. Four of the rewritten versions were incrementally modified but not suffi-
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1Copies of instruments used in all three studies are available from me.
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ciently changed to be deemed as having been correctly paraphrased, and thus wereclassified as plagiarized. The last two rewritten versions were thoroughly para-phrased (see Roig, 1997, for an explanation of how these criteria were derived).Participants were asked to assume that they are writing a paper and that they haveidentified information in a paragraph that they want to incorporate in their paper.They are then requested to consider each rewritten version, compare it to the origi-nal paragraph, and determine whether the rewritten version had been plagiarized,not plagiarized, or that they cannot make a determination of plagiarism. A demo-graphics section was included.
Procedure. Each participant at the five institutions received a packet con-taining the following materials: a copy of the revised PKS, an introductory letterexplaining the nature of the study with a request for their participation, and a 9 in. ×12 in. manila type, self-addressed return envelope. An up-to-date set of mailing la-bels for all full- and part-time professors was obtained from three of the academicinstitutions’ personnel offices. For these participants, each packet was sent, via in-teroffice mail, to half of the full-time and half of the part-time faculty using everyother mailing label from each set of labels. For the remaining two academic institu-tions for which mailing labels and a complete listing of its faculty could not be ob-tained, bundles of packets with the study’s materials were sent to each departmentwith detailed instructions for the department secretary to distribute each packet toeach member of its faculty. All participants were asked to complete the PKS, en-close it in the self-addressed return envelope, and deposit it in their department’s in-teroffice mail outbox. A mailbox under the author’s name was established in thepsychology department at each institution.
For the TIPS sample, the PKS was first converted into an electronic text file andthen modified for suitability as an e-mail survey. For example, unlike the actualpaper-and-pencil version, the e-mail version of the PKS included several copies ofthe original Zenhausern (1978) paragraph so that it always preceded each rewrittenparagraph. This arrangement enabled respondents to make comparisons betweenthe original and each rewritten version of the paragraphs within a single screen,thus avoiding the repeated use of the page-up or page-down features of their com-puter. The instructions for this group also were amended to guide respondents toproperly forward the completed PKS file to the author’s institutional e-mail ad-dress by using the reply function of their e-mail program. To distribute the PKS viae-mail, a list of TIPS subscribers was obtained from the TIPS list server. Then,each PKS survey file was pasted on an e-mail message that was then individuallye-mailed to every other subscriber from the list.
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Results and Discussion
The percentage of responses from the entire sample to each response category (i.e.,plagiarized, not plagiarized, cannot determine) for each rewritten version of theparagraph appears in Table 1. The most salient feature in these data is the pattern ofresponses to Paragraph 4 that shows that 44% of the sample of professors considersthis rewritten version as not being a case of plagiarism. Using a procedure identicalto one implemented in the study with undergraduates (see Roig, 1997), a plagiarismscore was computed for each respondent. Low plagiarism scores indicated that theindividual held plagiarism and paraphrasing criteria that were consistent with tradi-tional definitions (e.g., Hacker, 1994), whereas high scores indicated lenient pla-giarism and paraphrasing criteria. The average plagiarism scores obtained by re-spondents from each sample were analyzed with a one-way between-subjectsanalysis of variance (ANOVA), but no statistically significant differences were de-tected, F(5, 195) = 0.98, p = .43.
Because there were not enough respondents representing each academic disci-pline, professors were grouped into the following five broad categories: business,social sciences, humanities, science, and professional studies/other. A one-waybetween-subjects ANOVA carried out on plagiarism scores of the various aca-demic groupings failed to reach statistical significance, F(4, 170) = 1.99, p = .10.
Based on responses to demographic questions, t tests were carried out to deter-mine if plagiarism scores differed between respondents who had earned a master’s
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TABLE 1Percentage of CPsa and PPsb Who Compared Each of the Six Rewritten Paragraphs
to the Original Paragraph
Plagiarized Not Plagiarized Cannot Determine
CP PP CP PP CP PP
Paragraph No. % No. % No. % No. % No. % No. %
1 126 92 51 96 10 7 2 3 2 1 0 02 114 83 49 92 17 12 3 6 7 5 1 23 111 81 43 81 18 13 5 9 9 6 5 94 66 48 30 57 60 44 19 36 12 9 4 85c 5 4 3 6 129 94 49 93 4 3 1 26c 5 4 1 2 126 91 49 93 7 5 3 6
Note. CP = college professors; PP = psychology professors. A very small number of responses toParagraph 6 were adjusted based on comments provided. For example, if a respondent noted that theparagraph was plagiarized because the author had not been cited, that response was changed to notplagiarized. The task instructions asked respondents to assume that a citation appeared at the end of theparagraph or in a footnote.
an = 138. bn = 53. cRewritten versions were not plagiarized.
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versus a PhD degree, respondents who had published within the last 5 years versusthose who had not, and full-time versus part-time respondents. None of these com-parisons yielded statistically significant differences. Pearson product–momentcorrelations, however, revealed a low but expected negative correlation betweenplagiarism scores and number of papers published, r(105) = –.21, p = .02, whichsuggests that the more publications a respondent had the stricter that respondent’splagiarism criteria were. The rest of the comparisons yielded correlation coeffi-cients that were somewhat counterintuitive in nature. For example, year degreewas conferred and plagiarism scores produced a low but significant negative cor-relation, r(105) = –.19, p = .03, indicating that the more recent the degree thestricter the respondent’s plagiarism score. In addition, number of years of full-timeteaching was positively correlated, r(105) = .25, p = .005, with plagiarism scoressuggesting that as more time respondents spend teaching, the less rigorous theircriteria of plagiarism become. Age of respondents correlated in a similarly consis-tent manner with plagiarism scores, but that association failed to reach statisticalsignificance, r(105) = .14, p = .08.
It is possible that these associations are due to differences in scholarly produc-tivity as a function of age. Perhaps younger, untenured professors publish morevigorously early in their academic careers, but their productivity tapers off as dotheir criteria for plagiarism and correct paraphrasing. However, differences in agebetween those who published versus those who did not was not statistically signifi-cant, t(163) = .89, p < .05 (one tailed). In addition, the average year of receipt ofhighest degree was identical (X = 1981) for each group.
That neither of the paragraphs yielded 100% agreement among respondents (Ta-ble 1) indicates that professors’ conceptions of plagiarism and correct paraphrasingcan range widely from a very lax set of criteria for determining plagiarism to criteriathat can be even more rigorous than those prescribed by traditional definitions. It isworthnoting that, evenwithingroupsofacademicspecialties, respondentsappearedto have a fairly wide range of criteria for plagiarism.
That respondents showed the most disagreement in determining whether Para-graph 4 had been correctly paraphrased or plagiarized is somewhat alarming. Para-graph 4 did contain some minor modifications to the first sentence. However,because the second sentence was taken verbatim from the original, the entire para-graph had been classified as a plagiarized version. The lack of consensus on Para-graph 4 indicates that a significant proportion of professors maintain criteria forcorrect paraphrasing that may be viewed by some of their colleagues as plagiarism.
STUDY 2
The preceding methodology was conceptualized as an attempt at estimating collegeprofessors’ criteria for plagiarism and correct paraphrasing. However, would pro-
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fessors’ actual paraphrases evidence the same criteria that they applied to the sce-nariopresented inStudy1?Evidencefromastudywithundergraduatessuggests thattheir paraphrases may be based on somewhat less rigorous criteria. In the first of twostudies, Roig (1999) gave students the Paraphrasing Practices Survey (PPS; Roig,1996) that consisted of the same paragraph by Zenhausern (1978) used in his earlierstudy with undergraduates (Roig, 1997) and in Study 1. Students were placed in ascenario inwhich theywereasked toparaphrase theZenhausernparagraphfor inclu-sion in a paper they were writing. Consistent with the results of Roig’s (1997) study,which revealed that between 40% to 50% of students incorrectly identified plagia-rized paragraphs as correctly paraphrased, the results of Roig’s (1999) first studyshowed that up to 68% of students plagiarized to some degree.
If given the same task to college professors, would they produce results analo-gous to those of the students? The question was put to the test by obtaining anothersample of college professors comparable to that used in Study 1 and giving themthe Zenhausern (1978) paragraph to paraphrase. It was hypothesized that a signifi-cant proportion of college professors would paraphrase the paragraph in a mannerthat could be deemed as plagiarism.
Method
Participants. Eighty-six professors from the five institutions employed inStudy 1 and 23 professors from the TIPS Internet discussion group provided usefulparaphrased paragraphs for this study. Of the 482 surveys distributed in the privateuniversity, 32 paraphrases were returned (7%). The private 4-year college yielded20 paraphrases from a total of 198 surveys mailed (5%), and the community collegeproduced 16 responses from the 248 surveys that were sent (6%). As with the previ-ous study, return rates could not be established for the public 4-year college and thepublic university. For the Internet discussion group, 486 surveys were e-mailed and23 useful paraphrased paragraphs were returned (5%). The lower return rate for thisstudy was thought to be the result of the greater task demands placed on respon-dents (i.e., actually paraphrasing text as opposed to comparing rewritten versions toan original). Based on those respondents who identified their sex and age, therewere 70 men and 34 women who ranged in age between 25 and 75 years, with an av-erage of 49 years.
Instruments. A modified version of the PPS used in the first study with un-dergraduates reported by Roig (1999) was used in this study. Participants wereplaced in a scenario similar to the one used for Study 1. However, instead of evalu-ating various alternative paragraphs, as was done in Study 1, participants wereasked to paraphrase the original Zenhausern (1978) paragraph to the best of their
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ability and in a way that would not be classified as plagiarism. A demographics sec-tion similar to that used in the PKS also was included.
Procedure. The same general procedures for distributing the study’s materi-als employed in the previous study were used in this study.2 For the institutions’samples, the materials were mailed using their interoffice mail system. For theInternet discussion group, the PPS was converted into an electronic data file ande-mailed to each participant with detailed instructions to return the completed ma-terials to my institutional e-mail address.
Results and Discussion
Each paraphrased paragraph was examined for the number of consecutive wordstrings taken from the original. The percentage of respondents that appropriatedstrings of five, six, seven, or eight consecutive words was calculated. Shorter wordstrings (see Rathus, 1993) were not counted because it was felt that strings of threeor even four words would represent plagiarism criteria that were too rigorouswithin the limited context of this task.
Thirty percent of the paraphrases (n = 33) contained five-word strings from theoriginal paragraph. The percentage of paraphrases that contained six-, seven-, andeight-word strings were, respectively, 22% (n = 24), 18% (n = 20), and 9% (n =10). These data indicate that respondents were applying plagiarism criteria thatwere somewhat more rigorous than those used to evaluate the paragraphs in Study1 (i.e., Paragraph 4). However, the results also suggest that a small but significantnumber of college professors may be using a style of paraphrasing that could be in-terpreted by others as possible plagiarism.
Changes in the structure of the original paragraph, such as subject and predicatereversals and shifts in sentence order, also were examined. Twenty-two percent ofparaphrases evidenced such reversals. Finally, an attempt was made to estimate theaccuracyof theparaphrasesbynoting thenumberofdistortions in themeaningof theoriginalparagraph.Asurprising24%of theparaphrasesevidencedsome typeofdis-tortion, although most of these distortions were negligible at best. For example, forthe original sentence “ … many nonvisual thinkers have rather vivid imagery, butthey can state with confidence that they do not think in pictures,” the following para-
PLAGIARISM AND PARAPHRASING OF PROFESSORS 315
2Study 2 was conceptualized as the PKS was being prepared for distribution to participants in Study1. At that point, the decision was made to carry out both studies simultaneously. Thus, one half of the fac-ulty members at each institution received the materials for Study 1 and the other one half received mate-rials for Study 2. For the two institutions for which mailing labels could not be obtained, half of the studypackets in each bundle to be sent to each department contained the materials (i.e., the PKS) for Study 1,and the other half contained the materials (i.e., the PPS) for Study 2. All bundles consisted of alternatingpackets of Study 1 and Study 2 materials, and all materials were placed in the same 10 in. × 13 in. ma-nila-type interdepartmental office envelopes.
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phrases were received: “ … although the nonvisual thinkers had vivid imaginationthey did not see the images when they thought”; “Many people feel that they arenonvisual thinkers despite evidence of strong mental symbolization.”
On completion of the first of Roig’s (1999) two studies with undergraduates,3 itbecame clear that the Zenhausern (1978) paragraph was too technical to para-phrase for the average student in that sample. The Zenhausern paragraph consistsof a short description of results of tests of mental imagery ability and of character-istics of visual and nonvisual thinkers. Such knowledge domain, and the technicalterminology used in Zenhausern’s paragraph, is probably unfamiliar to most indi-viduals who lack the proper background in this area of psychology. The terminol-ogy and the unfamiliarity of the topic probably accounted for the high proportionof distortion in the paraphrases of students, as well as the distortions found in thisstudy with professors. That the use of unfamiliar, technical terminology can lead toerrors in paraphrasing has been documented in a study by Masson and Waldron(1994). These authors gave students legal documents to paraphrase and then exam-ined the accuracy of their paraphrases. The results showed that the documents thatwere written in plain language produced more accurate paraphrases than thoseproduced by the document containing legal terminology or the one in which tech-nical–legal terms had been removed. In addition, the document in which techni-cal–legal terms had been removed produced more completed paraphrases than theone containing such terms.
A related variable that may have influenced both distortions and the extent oftext appropriation concerns the reading difficulty level of the Zenhausern (1978)paragraph. Weaver and Bryant (1995) demonstrated that text readability is an im-portant variable in readers’ ability to evaluate their comprehension of text. Indeed,when the Flesch–Kincaid procedure from MS Word 97 was applied to theZenhausern paragraph, it yielded a readability level of 15.6; a score that is approxi-mately 2½ grade levels above the optimal level for the average undergraduate (seeWeaver & Bryant, 1995). Perhaps professors’ paraphrasing difficulties, particu-larly the relatively high proportion of respondents who distorted the meaning ofthe original paragraph, stem from the same constraining text variables that lead tothe high proportion of plagiarism and distortions in meaning with the undergradu-ate sample. In view of these considerations, the following study was carried out.
STUDY 3
Because the Zenhausern (1978) paragraph’s high reading level was suspected ofplaying an important role in the amount of text appropriation, Roig (1999) selected
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3Data analyses for the first study with undergraduates (Roig, 1999) took place at approximately thesame time as data for Study 2 with college professors were being collected.
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an easier to read paragraph about astrology, a familiar topic to most people, for hissecond study with undergraduates. The astrology paragraph, taken from Coon(1995), was given to a different sample of undergraduates to paraphrase under thesame scenario conditions as those used in the first study. As expected, only between9% and 19% of the students who paraphrased the astrology paragraph appropriatedword strings of between five and eight words in length. In view of the results withundergraduates, the obvious question arises as to whether more experienced writ-ers, such as college professors, would produce even lower levels of text appropria-tion when attempting to paraphrase the easier to read paragraph.
A sample of psychology professors was selected for this third study. The deci-sion to study professors from a single discipline was based, in part, on evidence in-dicating that wide differences in background information are known to mediate theprocessing of newer information (Spilich, Gregg, Vesonder, Chiesi, & Voss,1979) and are thus more likely to affect the quality of subsequent paraphrases (i.e.,distortions). Respondents from a single discipline not only would provide a certaindegree of homogeneity in background knowledge, but also would be expected tosubscribe to a more uniform set of paraphrasing and plagiarism guidelines. There-fore, to test the hypothesis that text readability affects the extent of text appropria-tion in college professors, members of the American Psychological Society (APS)were sent, via e-mail, the version of the PPS containing the Zenhausern (1978)paragraph or a comparable version containing the astrology paragraph. It was hy-pothesized that a greater proportion of respondents who paraphrased the diffi-cult-to-read Zenhausern paragraph would appropriate word strings than those whoparaphrased the easy-to-read astrology paragraph.
Method
Participants. A sample of 2,919 members of APS was used in this study. Ap-proximately half of the participants were sent, via e-mail, the easy-to-read versionof the PPS, whereas the other half received the difficult-to-read version. Of the totalnumber of surveys sent, 1,049 were automatically returned because of apparent in-valid or incorrect e-mail addresses, and 107 surveys were completed and success-fully returned, leading to a 6% return rate—a figure that is comparable to those ob-tained in Study 2 from both traditional mail and e-mail. Of those respondents whoidentified themselves by sex, 70 were men and 34 were women. Respondentsranged in age between 28 and 67 years, with a mean of 49 years.
Instruments. The version of the PPS used in Study 2 with the diffi-cult-to-read Zenhausern (1978) paragraph was again used in this study. A secondidentical version was constructed using the easier to read astrology paragraph. As
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noted earlier, the Zenhausern paragraph scored a Flesch–Kincaid readability indexof 15.62. Its sentence and vocabulary complexity levels were 62 and 50 (on a100-point scale), respectively. The astrology paragraph contained three sentenceson the subject of astrological charts and was comparable in length to theZenhausern paragraph. Its Flesch–Kincaid readability level was 11.2, and its sen-tence and vocabulary complexity levels were 33 and 43, respectively. Each instru-ment was converted into an electronic text file that could be easily copied andpasted into an e-mail message.
Procedure. Every fifth member of the APS who listed an e-mail address inthe 1996–1997 APS Directory was selected for the study. The first participant se-lected received the Zenhausern version of the PPS, and the second one received theversion containing the astrology paragraph. The rest of the participants weree-mailed the study materials in the same alternating fashion. As with Study 2, eache-mail message contained detailed task instructions for completing and returningthe PPS.
Results and Discussion
Of the 43 respondents who paraphrased the difficult-to-read paragraph, 26% (n =11) appropriated strings of text of five words in length, whereas 9% (n = 4) appro-priated strings of eight words or longer. These findings are comparable to those ofStudy 2 (see Table 2). Sixty-four respondents paraphrased the easy-to-read para-
318 ROIG
TABLE 2Percentages of College Professors and APS Members Who Appropriated Five-, Six-,Seven-, and Eight-Word Strings From the Original, and Who Distorted and Reversed
Portions of the Original Text for the High- and Low-Readability Paragraphs
APS Members
VariableCollege Professorsa
(Study 2), High Readability High Readabilityb Low Readabilityc
String length (words)5 30 26 36 22 19 37 18 16 08 9 9 0
Distortions 24 14 11Reversals 22 16 11
Note. APS = American Psychological Society.an = 109. bn = 43. cn = 64.
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graph. Of these, none of the respondents appropriated seven- or eight-word stringsof text, and only 3% (n = 2) of the sample appropriated strings of five words inlength; another 3% (n = 2) appropriated six-word strings.
As was done in Study 1, demographic factors were analyzed to determinewhether they moderated the extent of text appropriation. Neither type of degreeobtained, years of teaching experience, nor publication record seemed to be relatedto individuals’ writing practices.
That the quality of a paraphrase appears to depend on the readability of the orig-inal makes sense in the context of known evidence from the area of text processing(e.g., Masson & Waldron, 1994). Unfortunately, because of the specific design ofthis study, it is not possible to determine whether the extent of text appropriation isdue to primarily to differences in topic familiarity (mental imagery vs. astrology)or to differences in text complexity (e.g., readability level). Future research shouldaddress the specific contribution of these and other variables.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
The results of all three studies suggest the existence of wide differences in para-phrasing practices of college professors, even within members of a single disci-pline. However, in spite of using a more ecologically meaningful approach to as-sess these writing practices in Studies 2 and 3, the methodology used included anumber of constraints that, in all likelihood, artificially impaired respondents’ abil-ity to produce effective paraphrases. For example, some respondents who supplieduninvited (but welcomed) comments about the study complained that it was diffi-cult for them to adequately paraphrase the original text given the limited amount ofinformation (e.g., background material, general context of the paper being written)provided in the study’s scenario. Under normal circumstances, individuals para-phrasing such material would surely have some knowledge of the topic and wouldlikely have access to additional information, sources on the subject matter, or both,including the entire article or chapter from which each paragraph was obtained.
Another major issue that needs to be taken into account is the distinction betweenparaphrasing and summarizing. Although paraphrasing involves restating text froman original source in the writer’s own words, the process of summarizing condenseslarger amounts of text into a few sentences for the purpose of conveying the mainpoints of the original. Although scholarly writing involves both processes, summa-rizing may be the more frequently used technique when writing from sources(Troyka,1999). Inviewof theseconsiderations,particularlywith respect to the issueof readabilityof text,professors in this study(andstudents in theRoig,1999, studies)may have been “forced” to stay as close as possible to the original language to avoidconveying inaccurate information. In contrast, if the constraints previously outlinedonly have a minimal impact on individuals’ paraphrases and the preceding results
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represent actual writing practices, then the issue of how paraphrasing is definedwithin and across disciplines needs to be seriously considered.
Most modern manuals of writing that discuss the parameters of correct para-phrasing (e.g., Aaron, 1998; Hacker, 1994; Nadell et al., 1994; Troyka, 1999) arerelatively clear on the extent to which the original material must be modified to beconsidered properly paraphrased. For example, Troyka stated, “Even though aparaphrase is not a direct quotation, you must use DOCUMENTATION to credityour source. Also, you must reword your source material, not merely change a fewwords” (p. 498). In another manual, Aaron suggested that when paraphrasing asource, “Restate the source’s ideas in your own words and sentence structures” (p.257). Other writers offer even stricter definitions of paraphrasing. For example,consider Howard’s (1993; cited in Howard, 1999) definition of patchwriting, aform of writing that she considers plagiarism: “copying from a source text and thendeleting some words, altering grammatical structure, or plugging in one-for-onesynonym-substitutes” (p. 89). Accordingly, paraphrases such as those supplied byrespondents who appropriated strings of words in Studies 2 and 3 are certainly notwithin the guidelines of paraphrasing outlined by these manuals and would there-fore constitute possible instances of plagiarism.
If indeed college professors paraphrase in a manner similar to that observed inthe studies in this article, can we conclude that a small but significant proportion ofwriting by college professors may be classified as plagiarism? Obviously, such aconclusion would depend on a number of factors. For example, has text appropria-tion occurred systematically across various works cited throughout the paper, or isit confined to one or two instances of, say, a description of a complex methodologysection of an experimental research report? In addition, how many strings of con-secutive words have been appropriated and of what length are these strings of text?Clearly, these and other issues need to be taken into account when making a deter-mination of plagiarism.
One important factor to be considered when reviewing others’ work for potentialplagiarism is the discipline of the writer. For example, if the writer is a psychologystudent or professor, then perhaps those paraphrases might be acceptable within thepsychology community. Consider how the psychology profession defines para-phrasing and plagiarism. The Publication Manual of the American PsychologicalAssociation (APA; APA, 1994), a source used by most psychologists and others inthe social sciences (e.g., sociologists, social workers), offers the following guide-lines: “Summarizing a passage or rearranging the order of a sentence and changingsome of the words is paraphrasing” (p. 292). A comparison of the Publication Man-ual definition with the definitions of traditional writing manuals outlined earlier in-dicates some obvious differences in the extent to which text should be modified to beconsidered a proper paraphrase. Unfortunately, the absence of a general operationaldefinitionforparaphrasing leavesplentyof roomfordisagreementas towhenapara-phrase might be considered an instance of plagiarism.
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Curiously, in spite of the apparently lax definition of paraphrasing, the exampleoffered by the Publication Manual (APA, 1994, p. 292) is more consistent with thestricter definitions of paraphrasing found in the writing manuals previously cited.However, the “Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct” (APA,1992), from which the Publication Manual definition was probably derived, is con-sistent with the Publication Manual definition. Principle 6.22 states, “Psychologistsdo not present substantial [italics added] portions or elements of another’s work ordata as their own, even if the other work or data source is cited occasionally” (APA,1992, p. 1609). Do the principles imply that the appropriation of small portions ofothers’ text is an acceptable practice? Some within the field of psychology (e.g.,Saxe, 1996) appear to subscribe to a lenient approach to paraphrasing. Yet, others’advocate the application of a stricter definition (e.g., Rathus, 1993; Szuchman,1999). For example, handouts designed to prevent student plagiarism, from psy-chology departments at a number of colleges and universities (e.g., Bishop’s Uni-versity, 1994; Monmouth University, 1995), contain guidelines that are moreconsistent with the stricter approach to paraphrasing than with the approach sug-gested by the Publication Manual. Clearly, the guidelines for paraphrasing and pla-giarism in the field of psychology are being subjected to different interpretations bysome of its members and are therefore in need of further clarification.
Evidence of scholarly productivity in the form of publications and successfulgrant applications continues to be an important basis for obtaining an academic po-sition, as well as, for attaining promotion and tenure (Boice, 1990). More impor-tant, scholarly work is increasingly multidisciplinary in nature. Yet, the evidenceindicates that there can be substantial differences in how paraphrasing and plagia-rism are defined even within a single discipline. At a time when college faculty andadministrations are drawing increasing attention to the problem of plagiarism inthe academy, the current situation represents a highly undesirable state of affairs inneed of immediate attention.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The studies reported in this article were partially supported by a St. John’s Univer-sity 1997 summer research grant and were carried out during the period between thefall semesters of 1996 and 1997.
Portions of these data were presented at the 9th and 10th annual meetings of theAmerican Psychological Society, both held in Washington, DC, in May 1997 andMay 1998, respectively.
I am indebted to the many individuals at the institutions where data were col-lected who provided assistance in this project. Particular appreciation is expressedto some of the respondents who provided insightful comments on the project and
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to Judith Nye, who personally facilitated the approval process and other accommo-dations to carry out the study at one of the academic institutions.
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