Veronica Willcock discusses some of the research carried out into the incidence of plagiarism amongst Turkish medical students as well as looking at some of the cultural and environmental reasons behind it.
Due to many factors, including lack of time, lack of confidence in language ability, cultural differences surrounding the topic, plagiarism can be a huge issue in the academic writing produced by university students. Very often it is not deliberate. These days, to get into the best schools, programs, or internships science students often need to have their names on published work BEFORE graduating to even have a shot at the application process. Accidental plagiarism can all too often be the result of this pressure. As many of our students wish to intern in foreign (particularly U.S.) universities, potentially complete post-graduate level education, or eventually work overseas it is essential they understand not only the huge importance placed on original writing, but also the potential consequences of accidentally plagiarising.
Plagiarism in science is a well-documented, worldwide issue. A 2014 study from Kathleen Amos looked at the retraction rate due to plagiarism from PubMed between 2008 and 2012. Of the 20 countries that had retractions of 5 or more papers, the highest rate was found in Italy, where 66.7% of retractions resulted from plagiarism. This was followed by Turkey at 61.5%, Iran and Tunisia at 42.9% each, and France at 38.5%. In total, 12 countries had rates of plagiarism higher than the 16.6% average calculated for the sample.
Obviously, students from these countries have very different reasons for plagiarizing – there is no one size fits all. However, as I’m based in Turkey with predominantly Turkish students, I can perhaps look at their specific situation.
Firstly, the school system doesn’t encourage the teaching of HOW to write. It is a very ‘teach-to-the-test’ type of formula, so students often struggle to organize their thoughts. They often write exactly as they would speak, which leads them off on tangents and down winding paths of thought that can be difficult for the reader to follow. There’s a tendency to copy in everything they have found of even remote relevance to the topic, in the hope of achieving extra marks. Therefore, papers aren’t organized in a logical way, which leaves them missing the structure that is necessary in all types of writing for communication, of course – but even more so in scientific writing, where a particular format is expected. Additionally, students are not given assignments where they are asked to summarize pieces of writing until they reach university level. This makes suddenly having to research and cite an array of texts for their own projects not just daunting and overwhelming, but virtually impossible.
The ‘teach-to-the-test’ formula also encourages students to memorize, rather than summarize or analyze, and rewards rote learning and the regurgitation of facts. These skills are not conducive to, and very difficult to apply, to scientific method. When students read and re-read the same text to the point of memorization, it is often difficult for them to realize they have in fact quoted the author directly without citing him or her. Such ‘acquired information’ gets mistaken for personal knowledge or phrasing, rather than something that has been memorized.
On top of this – English is not the students’ first, nor some-times even second language. This makes an already daunting and difficult task seem totally insurmountable for students who have worked incredibly hard to get into the university of their choice, only to find that getting there was the easy part. That they are now competing for places and positions with students from all over the world, some of whom have English as their first language, or have experienced education in English from a very early age.
No problem, we say, those who plagiarize will be caught and reprimanded in the usual way – warnings, suspension or exclusion from the university, for example. However, this has proved not to be a deterrent at all. Even though they are all totally aware of what plagiarism is, and can point to examples of it, they don’t believe that THEY themselves will be caught – that THEY are the exceptional circumstance that is justifiable and will be pardoned. A surprising notion for many of us, but one which bears out – very few ARE punished if they are caught. The Medical English Program has even been told it was an acceptable method of study.
References:
Amos, K. A. (2014) The ethics of scholarly publishing: Exploring differences in plagiarism and duplicate publication across nations. JMLA, 102(2), 87-91. DOI:10.3163/1536-5050.102.2.005
deGrasse Tyson, N. (2014) https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/323495818889949184?lang=en&lang=en
Haber D. (2016) Plagiarism Scandal Hits Turkish Academia, Hürriyet Daily News
Sign in
