Academic Integrity in the Digital Age

Plagiarism 1710 England passes first copyright law 1790 Congress passes first US copyright law 1890s Plagiarism is commonplace at many colleges and universities 1964 30% of college students polled by Rutgers’ Don MaCabe admit to plagiarizing at least once 1971 George Harrison is sued for plagiarizing and ordered to pay $587,000 1987 Joseph Biden Jr. abandons his presidential bid after reports catch him plagiarizing speeches from other politicians 1989 University of Georgia researcher, FredSchab, finds that 79% of high school students have copied materials “word for word” out of a book without attributing it 1997 Boston University sues to prohibit term-paper mills from operating via the internet. Suit dismissed, did not violate federal racketeering laws 2001 McCabe finds 52% of high-school juniors admitted to copying “a few sentences from a Website without footnoting them.” 16% said they had “obtained in large part from a term-paper mill of website 13