Abstract
In recent years, issues of academic honesty, including student plagiarism, have become hot topics among university faculty. Many universities are trying various techniques and tools such as plagiarism-detection software in order to curtail what some describe as an explosion of instances of plagiarism at the university level. This thesis will explore current scholarship and data on plagiarism to determine to what extent this general belief is true. Additionally, for this project, I requested that first-year composition instructors complete a short questionnaire regarding their attitudes toward plagiarism within the context of English 1A, and I analyzed these responses along with other classroom materials submitted by instructors. Through my analysis of the data provided by first-year composition instructors, I have determined key areas of first-year composition classrooms that can be improved upon in order to provide a more ethical and complex approach to plagiarism. By treating plagiarism as an ethical concern of writing that is dependent upon the discourse community in which the writer is writing, first-year composition instructors can better prepare students to write as members of academic discourse communities.